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Sauce, Perigueux
Place one good-sized (or two small) finely chopped truffles in a small saucepan with three tablespoons sherry, one teaspoon glace de viande, meat extract, half a light saltspoon finely crushed white pepper, a little salt and a gill demi-glace. Mix well, boil for five minutes and use as required. N. B. When opening a bottle of truffles always be careful to pour in a little sherry to prevent spoiling.
A classical truffle sauce that lives or dies on the quality of its demi-glace; the truffle is folded into an already finished brown sauce rather than cooked in it.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fluid ounces. That plus the sherry gives roughly two thirds of a cup before the boil reduces it, enough for a few small portions over filet steaks, tournedos or poached eggs.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so half a light one is a pinch of white pepper -- an eighth of a teaspoon at most. The pepper is meant to be felt, not tasted.
- Demi-glaceThe reduced brown sauce of classical French cookery: espagnole and brown stock simmered together and strained. A good commercial demi-glace concentrate works; a cube of bouillon dissolved in water does not, since it has no gelatine and will not coat.
- Glace de viandeMeat glaze, stock reduced until it sets like rubber at room temperature. Commercial glazes and demi-glace concentrates are often heavily salted, so taste before adding the salt at the end.
- The five minutesFive minutes at a bare boil is enough to bind the sherry and drive off its raw edge. Longer reduction dulls the truffle aroma, which is volatile and mostly lost with prolonged heat.
- TrufflesThe recipe assumes bottled or tinned black truffles, still the practical option. Add any juice from the tin along with the truffle, and chop fine rather than slicing so the perfume distributes.
- The sherry noteTopping an opened bottle of truffles with sherry was a keeping trick from before reliable refrigeration. Treat an opened jar as a perishable: refrigerate it and use within a few days.
- ServingSpoon over the meat at the table rather than saucing in the pan, and keep the sauce hot but not simmering while the meat rests.
Périgueux is the capital of Périgord in southwestern France, the country of the black winter truffle, whose market town gives the sauce its name. In the classical repertoire it is a demi-glace finished with chopped truffle and usually Madeira or sherry, and it is distinguished from sauce Perigourdine, which is generally made with truffles cut in slices or with foie gras worked in. Its presence here reflects how thoroughly hotel and restaurant cooking in the United States ran on French terms: a cook expected to produce this sauce had to have demi-glace and meat glaze already standing on the stove, which is why the recipe explains neither.