No. 630

Rougemont Sauce

Sauce a la Rougemont

Procure four ounces of lobster coral or eggs, the creamy parts of the bodies of two lobsters, and pound these together with six hard boiled egg-yolks, then press the whole through a sieve into a bowl; dilute and incorporate into it five gills of oil and half a gill of vinegar, two chopped and blanched shallots, a dash of cayenne, a tablespoonful of tarragon and chervil, and half as much chopped parsley, as well as one ounce of chopped pickled gherkins.

← No. 629 Rosseberry Sauce Cold Sauces No. 631 Tartar Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

A cold mayonnaise-type emulsion bound with sieved lobster coral and hard-boiled yolks rather than raw egg. It is stiff, deep coral-pink, and meant for cold fish and shellfish.

The gillsFive gills of oil is 2½ cups; half a gill of vinegar is 2 fl oz, or 4 tablespoons. That is roughly a 10:1 oil-to-acid ratio, so the sauce leans rich and is corrected with the vinegar in the gherkins and the cayenne.
Coral and "creamy parts"Coral is the roe of a female (hen) lobster; the creamy part of the body is the tomalley, the liver. Four ounces of coral is a great deal — count on the roe of several hen lobsters, or buy frozen coral from a fishmonger.
Cook the coral firstRaw coral is dark greenish-black and tastes of iodine; it turns scarlet and sets only with heat. Take it from lobsters that have been fully boiled, or the sauce will be muddy grey-green and raw-tasting.
The hinge: build it like mayonnaiseOnce the coral, tomalley and yolks are pounded and sieved to a smooth paste, add the oil a few drops at a time, working constantly, before moving to a thin stream. Cooked yolks hold less well than raw, so a fast pour will break it.
Blanched shallotsThirty seconds in boiling water, then drained and cooled, takes the raw bite out and stops the shallot from souring the sauce as it stands. Do not skip it and add them raw.
The herbsA tablespoonful of tarragon and chervil most likely means the two together, fresh and finely chopped, with 1½ teaspoons of parsley, though the wording could also be read as a tablespoonful of each. Dried tarragon is a poor stand-in here; if chervil is unavailable, use a little more parsley rather than substituting dill.
Yield and servingAbout 3½ to 4 cups — enough for a large cold buffet dish. Serve it with cold poached salmon or turbot, lobster salad, or cold shellfish. Being egg- and shellfish-based, it should be kept refrigerated and used within a day.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of the kitchen he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and its cold-sauce chapter is essentially a catalogue of mayonnaise variations built for the era's grand cold tables, where a poached salmon or a lobster in aspic was expected to arrive with its own tinted sauce. Ranhofer, like most nineteenth-century French chefs, named such sauces freely after people, places and patrons, and the source of "Rougemont" is not documented in the book; the neighbouring No. 629 "Rosseberry" may be an Anglicised Rosebery, which would suggest the same habit of honouring a name rather than describing an ingredient — though rouge does coincide with the sauce's scarlet colour. What the recipe does document precisely is the period's use of lobster coral as a colouring agent: sieved coral, lobster butter and coral-tinted sauces were one way a chef got red onto a cold plate.<br><br>The technique of binding with sieved hard-boiled yolks rather than raw ones may also have been practical, though the book does not say so. A cooked-yolk emulsion holds its shape on a buffet for hours and can be piped or spooned in a mound, which a slack raw mayonnaise cannot.</aside>