No. 624

Remoulade Sauce

Sauce Remoulade

Chop up well one blanched shallot, have a handful of parsley leaves, chervil, tarragon and burnet; pound the whole in a small marble mortar; add four nicely cleaned anchovy fillets, five or six hard boiled egg-yolks, rub all the ingredients through a sieve, then mix in three or four raw yolks, stir into this preparation one pint of oil, half a gill of vinegar and mustard, the same as for mayonnaise (No. 606) and finish the sauce with capers, finely chopped pickled gherkins and a dash of cayenne pepper.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's remoulade is a mayonnaise built on a base of pounded herbs, anchovy and sieved hard-boiled yolks, which is why it holds so much oil. Read the ratios before you start: this is a large batch by modern standards.

The hinge: emulsify with the raw yolksThe sieved hard yolks give body and flavour but will not emulsify a pint of oil on their own. The three or four raw yolks do that work, so add the oil in a slow thread, whisking constantly, exactly as for the mayonnaise in No. 606. If it breaks, start a fresh raw yolk in a clean bowl and beat the split sauce into it a spoonful at a time.
Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of vinegar is 2 fl oz, or 4 tablespoons. Against a pint (2 cups) of oil that gives a sharp but not aggressive sauce.
The unmeasured mustard"The same as for mayonnaise" is Ranhofer's cross-reference, not a quantity. A teaspoon or so of smooth Dijon-style mustard, worked in with the raw yolks before the oil, is in keeping; add more at the end to taste.
Burnet, and what to do without itSalad burnet is a cucumber-scented herb that has largely dropped out of commerce. Leave it out rather than hunt for it, or lift the herb mixture with a little extra chervil and tarragon.
Blanching the shallotThirty seconds in boiling water, then a cold rinse and a squeeze dry. This removes the raw bite that would otherwise dominate a sauce eaten cold.
AnchoviesRanhofer's "nicely cleaned" fillets were most likely salt-packed, needing rinsing and boning. Oil-packed fillets work directly; pat them dry, and hold back on any added salt until the sauce is finished.
Mortar, sieve, machineA small food processor will do the pounding and most of the sieving in one step, though pushing the pounded base through a fine sieve is still what gives the sauce its smoothness. Take the machine off the job before the oil goes in, or add oil only in a very thin stream, as high-speed blending of this much oil can turn the sauce pasty.
Raw yolksThe sauce is never heated. Use pasteurised eggs if serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, keep the finished sauce refrigerated, and use it within a day or two.
YieldA pint of oil plus the eggs and flavourings produces roughly three cups of finished sauce, enough for twenty or more servings alongside cold meat, shellfish or celery root. Quartering the recipe is straightforward as long as you keep one raw yolk in the mix.

A Little History

Remoulade reaches French cookery as a cold, mustard-and-herb-sharpened mayonnaise, and the name is generally traced to Picard dialect words for horseradish or a pungent root — a hint that early versions were fiercer than this one. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of the restaurant's repertoire, and its cold sauce chapter is organised as a family tree: one master mayonnaise (No. 606) with a run of variations built on it, ravigote on one side, remoulade and its "Indian style" version on the other. The sieved hard-boiled yolks here give the sauce a pale opacity and enough body to hold its shape on a plate of cold boiled meat or shellfish, the kind of dish a restaurant kitchen could assemble to order from a bowl kept on ice.