No. 610

Mayonnaise Sauce Provencal with Sweet Peppers

Sauce Mayonnaise Provencale aux Poivrons doux

Mash four medium sized cloves of garlic with two tablespoonfuls of English mustard, two cooked egg-yolks, two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs soaked in milk and all the liquid pressed out; beat the whole with two raw egg yolks, half a coffeespoonful of pepper, some salt and a teaspoonful of sweet Spanish peppers; incorporate in a pint of oil, dropping it in slowly, and a few spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar, also a little water. Just when serving mix in the sweet Spanish peppers, previously broiled so their skin can be removed, then cut them up in squares. The sweet peppers can be replaced by those that come in cans, which are very well prepared.

← No. 609 Mayonnaise Figaro Cold Sauces No. 611 Mayonnaise Sauce with Arrowroot →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer's Provençal mayonnaise is a garlic aioli stiffened with a bread panade and hard-cooked yolks, then finished with roasted peppers. The panade is what makes it forgiving.

The hinge: build the base before the oilThe garlic, mustard, cooked yolks and squeezed bread must be worked to a smooth paste with the raw yolks before a drop of oil goes in. That paste is a pre-formed emulsion base; skip it and a pint of oil into two raw yolks alone is a fragile proposition.
"Sweet Spanish peppers" means two different things"Sweet Spanish peppers" appears twice for what are almost certainly two different things: the teaspoonful beaten into the base reads as ground sweet pepper (paprika/pimenton), while the ones broiled, peeled and diced at the end are whole pods. Ranhofer uses the same phrase for both and does not distinguish them.
English mustardEnglish mustard of this period was commonly sold as mustard flour, the Colman type, to be mixed to a paste before use. Two tablespoons of dry powder is aggressive; two tablespoons of made-up paste is closer to what the finished sauce wants. Ranhofer does not specify which he means.
CoffeespoonfulThe measure is not fixed: a coffeespoon is variously reckoned a quarter to a half teaspoon, and Ranhofer's French usage may simply mean a teaspoon. Half of one is therefore somewhere between a scant eighth and a half teaspoon of pepper; start low. Salt to taste.
Oil quantity and yieldA pint is two cups, so the finished sauce will run to three cups or more depending on how much bread and pepper you add; the recipe fixes none of those amounts. Halve or quarter the whole formula for domestic use. A neutral oil, or olive oil cut with something mild if you want the Provencal note without bitterness.
Vinegar and water"A few spoonfuls" of tarragon vinegar means adding it in stages as the sauce thickens; it both seasons and thins. The little water is there to keep the emulsion from becoming too tight and breaking as more oil goes in.
Broiling the peppersBlister them under a hot broiler until the skin blackens and lifts, then cover for ten minutes to steam before peeling. Drain the diced flesh well; wet peppers will loosen the sauce. Ranhofer directs that they be mixed in only just when serving.
Raw yolksThe sauce is never heated. If serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurised eggs. Keep it refrigerated and use within two days.
ServingThis belongs with cold poached fish, shellfish, cold boiled beef or hard-cooked eggs, in the manner of a Provençal aioli rather than as a salad dressing.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast professional record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where the cold-sauce chapter runs to dozens of numbered mayonnaise variants. The Provençal name aside, the construction — bread-crumbs soaked in milk and pressed dry — follows a pattern often associated with aioli and its relatives, where crumb and pestle did the work that egg yolk alone is trusted with now. The sweet peppers point to the availability of tinned peppers, which Ranhofer remarks "are very well prepared."