Food Lorists

• 150g (51/3 oz) butter, kept at room temperature.
• 1 clove of garlic.
• 1 lemon juice.
• 1/2 buch of flat parsley.
• salt and pepper.

Procedure:

In a bowl, place the soft but not melting butter along with the lemon juice, pepper (salt if using unsalted butter), the crushed and very finely chopped garlic. Start mixing (not working) the butter with a fork or wooden spoon.

Thouroughly, wash and dry the parsley and chop it very finely. Add it to the butter and keep mixing until all the ingredients have binded well together.

Take a sheet of tin foil, cover it with a sheet of cling film. Place the parsley butter on all its lenght and roll it into a sausage. Tie each ends of the tube and squeeze them by rolling the tin foil between your fingers until it becomes very tight.

Keep refrigerated.

Butter is "...the most delicate of foods among barbarous nations, and one which distinguishes the wealthy from the multitude at large."

Pliny

• 1 bigarade orange (or a bitter orange).
• 1.5 dl of finished espagnole sauce.
• 20g butter.
• a pinch of cracked pepper.

Cut the zest of the orange making sure that there are no white bits on it. Blanch them briefly. Press the orange.

In a thick bottom pot, place the orange zests and the juice and reduce by half.

Add the espagnole sauce and and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Skim from time to time. Add the cracked pepper and strain through a fine chinois.

Just before serving, whisk in the butter.

Recipe for the white sauce bigarade:

• 15 cl dry white wine.
• 1 bigarade orange (or a bitter orange).
• 1.5 dl white veal stock.
• 1 teaspoon arrow root.
• 2 tablespoons water.
• 1/2 lemon juice.
• 1 shot of cointreau.

Zest and press the orange (make sure that they are no white bits on the zests). Blanch the zests and set aside.

Take the tray in which you have roasted your duck, carefully get rid of the fat and collect the glaze at the bottom of the tray with the white wine and strain this liquid, set aside.

In a thick bottom saucepan, put the orange juice, lemon juice and the duck glaze. Bring to the boil and reduce by half.

Add, the veal stock and the cointreau, allow to reduce for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the arrow root with water. Whisk the thickener in the sauce and allow to cook for 5 minutes. Strain through a fine chinois.

Finally, add the orange zests and check the seasoning.

Recipe for the brown bigarade sauce:

• 1 bigarade orange (or a bitter orange).
• 1/2 lemon.
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar.
• 2 dl veal jus.
• 20g sugar.
• 1 shot Grand Marnier or curacao.

Zest and press the orange and the lemon (make sure that they are no white bits on the zests). Blanch the zests.

In a thick bottom saucepan, place the sugar and the vinegar cook until it reaches a golden blond caramel. Add the jus and allow to simmer for 5 minutes or so.

Add the juices and the Grand Marnier and simmer for another 10 minutes. Skim if needed. Strain through a chinois.

Just before serving add the zests and check the seasoning.

• 300g of cured ham, in the form of two slices, 9mm thick.
• 2 partridges.
• 1kg of veal cushon.
• 2 litres + 2 litres of veal bouillon.
• 200 carotts.
• 200g onions.
• 6 cloves of garlic.
• 20g celery.
• 200g of mushroom trimmings.
• 1kg fresh tomatoes.
• 125g butter.
• 125g flour.
• a bouquet garni.
• 2 cloves.

In a large pot, place the two slices of cured ham at the bottom, put the two partridges and the veal cushon on the top of them and pour in 2 litres of veal bouillon. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and allow the bouillon to reduce to a glaze. Skim, from time to time. At this point, prick the partridges and veal cushon to allow the meat juices to join the glaze.

Pour the rest of the bouillon onto the glaze and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let it simmer. Skim from time to time.

Meanwhile, in a separate pot, sweat off the vegetable cut into a mirepoix and set aside. In the pot, make a brown roux with the butter and the flour. Dilute it with a couple of spoons (large ones) of bouillon. Pour the diluted roux into the bouillon along with the mirepoix, mushroom trimmings, tomatoes, cloves and bouquet garni.

Let the sauce simmer for 1h30 in the corner of the sauce. Make sur to skim regularly.

Strain the sauce and set aside until needed.

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Modern sauce espagnole recipe:

• 2.25 litre brown veal stock.
• 1/2 litre white wine.
• 50g carotts.
• 50g onions.
• 20g celery.
• 20g green of leek.
• 100g mushroom trimmings.
• 1 bouquet garni.
• 30g butter.
• 30g flour.
• 1kg fresh tomatoes.

In a large pot, sweat off the vegetables cut into a mirepoix, then set aside. In the same pot make a brown roux with the butter and the flour.

Dilute this roux with the veal stock. Add the mirepoix, tomatoes, mushroom trimmings, bouquet garni and the wine. Bring to the boil and allow to cook gently for 3 to 4 hours. Skim from time to time.

Strain using a fine chinois.

“To preside over a political chamber or to hold a post in an embassy, is to take a course in gastronomy.”

Antonin Careme (1783-1833)

• 1/4 litre of milk.
• 1/4 litre of light game bouillon (or vegetable bouillon for vegetarians. I know it is quite unlikely that they use this sauce but I like to thik about everybody).
• 200g fresh bread crumb (make sure to trim the crust off).
• 200g butter.
• 1 shallot finely chopped.
• 1/2 onion finely chopped.
• 1 small clove of garlic, crushed with tip of a knife.
• 1/3 bay leaf.
• 1 sprig of thyme.
• 1 sprig of rosemary.
• 3 juniper berry.
• 1 pinch of nutmeg.
• salt and pepper.

In a thick bottom pot, sweat off the onion and the shallot with the butter. Add the bread crumb and the garlic, allow to cook until all the fat has been absorbed by the bread.

Pour the bouillon and the milk. Give it a good stir and add the thyme, rosemary, bay leaf and juniper berries. Allow to cook, gently, for a good half hour.

When this is done, take the pot of the heat and allow it to cool down.

Remove the herbs and juniper berries and pass through the food processor.

Put the sauce back in the pot and bring it slowly to a gentle simmer, add the nutmeg and check the seasoning. Reduce the sauce if needed and set aside in a bain-marie until serving time.

"At the time of the Congress of Vienna, the ambassador (Talleyrand), taking leave of Louis XVIII, said to him: ‘Please believe me, Your majesty, I need saucepans more than written questions.’"
Lucien Tendret (1825-1896) French lawyer

There is a recipe for a classic pepper sauce: the sauce poivrade. This sauce is a classic accompaniement of marinated meat and games.



Recipe for 1/2 litre of finished sauce:

For the mirepoix:

• 150g carrots.
• 100g onions.
• 100g unsmoked pork belly.
• 50 celery.
• 1 sprig of thyme.
• 1/2 a bay leaf.
• 30g butter.
• 1/2 litre white wine vinegar.
• 1 dl white wine.

For the roux:

• 40g butter.
• 40g plain flour.

For the sauce:

• 1 dl white wine.
• 7.5dl beef bouillon or chicken bouillon.
• 2 tablespoons minced mushrooms.

Procedure

In a thick bottom saucepan, sweat off the mirepoix with the butter, for 20 minutes. Then, add the vinegar and the wine and allow to reduce by half.

In a separate pot, make a brown roux with the butter and the flour. Dilute it with the bouillon, allow to cook for 30 minutes. Skim from time to time.

Degrease the mirepoix and add it to the thinckened bouillon. Add the wine wine and the mushrooms and allow to cook, gently for 1 hour. Keep skimming from time to time.

Crush 12 black peppercorn with the bottom of a saucepan and add them to the sauce. Allow to cook for another 5 minutes. Make sure not to let the sauce cook more than 8 minutes as black peppercorn turn bitter if they cook more than 8 minutes.

Stain the sauce through a chinois.

If the sauce is to go with a marinated meat, use the strained marinade to dilute the roux. In the case of a game add the meat trimings to the bouillon.

"The assistant of the stock, the roux, brings to the brown sauce only a flavor note of little importance, beyond its thickening principle, and it has the disadvantage of requiring, in order that the sauce be perfect, an almost absolute elimination of its components. Only the starchy principle remains in a sauce properly skimmed. Indeed, if this element is absolutely necessary to give mellowness and velvetiness to the sauce; it is much simpler to give it pure, which permits one to bring it to the point in as little time as possible, and to avoid a too prolonged sojourn on the fire. It is therefore infinitely probable that before long starch, fecula, or arrowroot obtained in a state of absolute purity will replace flour in the roux."

August Escoffier