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Sauce Siberienne
Prepare a mayonnaise sauce, adding--when made--half teaspoon anchovy essence and teaspoon very fine, freshly grated horseradish; place vessel on ice, briskly mix with a whisk until thoroughly cold, and serve as required.
A compound cold sauce built on mayonnaise, so everything depends on the base being stable before the additions go in. The original assumes you know how much mayonnaise you are working with; period practice for a garnishing sauce of this kind is roughly a half pint, about a cup.
- Scale the seasoningsThe recipe gives no quantity of mayonnaise, so the half teaspoon of anchovy essence and the teaspoon of horseradish have to be judged by taste against the batch you have. In a small quantity of mayonnaise the anchovy will dominate and dull the colour.
- Anchovy essenceA bottled Victorian condiment of pounded anchovy, salt and spice, thinner and saltier than modern anchovy paste. Use about half as much tubed anchovy paste, or a scant teaspoon of colatura, and taste before adding salt.
- HorseradishFreshly grated is specified for a reason: the heat is volatile and begins fading within an hour of grating. If you use the jarred kind, squeeze out the vinegar first and use two to three times the quantity, accepting that the sauce will read sharper and less hot.
- Why the ice and the whiskChilling a finished mayonnaise while whisking firms the emulsion and keeps the added liquid from loosening it. Work the bowl over ice rather than in the refrigerator, and stop as soon as it is cold and glossy; over-whisking a cold mayonnaise can break it.
- Raw eggThe mayonnaise is uncooked and stays uncooked. Use pasteurised eggs if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, and keep the sauce refrigerated.
- Holding timeMake it the day you serve it; the horseradish dulls overnight.
- ServingA sauce of this kind dresses cold poached salmon or trout, and suits cold beef, shellfish and hard-boiled eggs equally well. The recipe says only to "serve as required", so serving it separately in a sauceboat is a suggestion rather than an instruction.
Sauces named for places were a fixture of the grand-hotel repertoire around 1900, and cold mayonnaise derivatives were the easiest of all to christen: change two seasonings, change the name. Russian- and Siberian-styled cold sauces of the period were variously seasoned with horseradish, caviar, smoked fish or anchovy; horseradish was one common association rather than a reliable signal. The International Cook Book collected this sort of thing from the professional kitchens of the day, where anchovy essence stood in the store cupboard beside the mushroom ketchup and Harvey's sauce as a bottled shortcut to savour. The pairing itself is sound cold-buffet logic rather than anything documented as Siberian: salt and heat lifting a bland emulsion served against cold fish or meat.