French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [66]
BOUILLON POUR LES SAUCES
STOCK FOR SAUCES
The bouillon from the pot-au-feu (see page 156) is often used in household cookery as a basis for sauces, but when you have no such meat stock available and when it is necessary to make a foundation for a sauce independently of the ingredients of the dish which it is to accompany, the following method will produce a well-flavoured clear stock without any great expense either of time or materials. It is a method simplified to the greatest possible degree for household cookery.
The ingredients are: lb. each of lean stewing veal, preferably from the shin, and good quality minced beef; 2 scraped carrots, 2 halved tomatoes, 2 medium-sized onions, washed but not peeled, 2 sprigs of parsley with the stalks; no salt or pepper until a later stage.
Put all the ingredients in a small pot or saucepan which will go in the oven; cover with just over a pint of water. Cover the pot and cook in a low oven for 1 hours. Strain through an ordinary sieve. Leave in a bowl until the fat has set. Remove the fat. Heat up the stock, strain through a muslin to get rid of any sediment. There should now be about pint of clear straw-coloured bouillon ready to make any sauce requiring stock.
As it has been cooked without salt, it can also be reduced to a thick syrup-like consistency, a sort of improvised meat glaze or glace de viande, in the following manner: put a large soup ladle of the bouillon into a 6-inch frying-pan or sauté pan. Let it bubble fairly gently for about 10 minutes, during which time you remove the little flecks of scum which come to the surface with a metal spoon dipped frequently in hot water. When the liquid starts to stick to the spoon and is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, it is done. The flavour is now three times as strong as it was to start with but, of course, had there been salt in it, it would have been uneatable. Pour it into a little jar, keep it covered, and when it is to be used heat it up in the jar standing in a pan of water. Although this has not the deep colour of professional meat glaze, it has the right amount of body to strengthen a sauce, plus a freshness and clarity of flavour unusual in the lengthily cooked, more elaborate confection of the chefs.
For large households the stock can be made in double quantities, and for the reduction to glaze, use a larger, 10-inch pan. For one of its best uses, see the recipe for sauce bercy on page 114.
TRÉSOR DE CUISINE
Under this name Mique Grandchamp, author of Le Cuisinier à la Bonne Franquette (1884) gives us a useful idea for conserving and making the best use of a small quantity of meat glaze.
Uncork a bottle of Madeira, pour out one wineglassful, and put the bottle in a pan of warm water; bring the water slowly to the boil and, when the wine is hot, pour in gradually a wineglass of melted meat glaze; put the cork back in the bottle and leave it in a warm place near the stove for two hours. This makes a valuable standby for adding to sauces, particularly those which are to be served with game, and for all manner of dishes where a little extra flavouring is required. The mixture can be stored almost indefinitely but, of course, a half-bottle or even less still goes quite a long way.
SAUCE BIGARADE
ORANGE SAUCE
This is to serve with wild or domestic duck. Bigarade is the French name for bitter oranges.
Two Seville oranges, a teacupful of veal or game stock, 1 oz. of butter, 1 tablespoon of flour, 4 lumps of sugar, salt and pepper.
Pare the rind of the oranges very thinly, cut into fine shreds, plunge them into boiling water and boil 5 minutes. Strain. Prepare a brown roux by melting the butter in a small saucepan, stirring in the flour and continuing to stir over a gentle flame until the mixture is quite smooth and turns café au lait colour; now add half the warmed stock, stir again, then add the other half. Cook very gently another 5 minutes. Add the seasonings, the strained juice of one of the oranges