espagnole

Espagnole sauce () is a basic brown sauce, and is one of the mother sauces of classic French cooking. In the early 19th century the chef Antonin Carême included it in his list of the basic sauces of French cooking. In the early 20th century Auguste Escoffier named it as one of the five sauces at the core of France's cuisine.

Etymology

"Espagnole" is the French for "Spanish". Many French sauces have names of countries, such as hollandaise sauce or crème anglaise. Generally, the country's name is chosen as a tribute to a historical event or because the sauce's content evokes that country. In the case of Spanish sauce, it is thought that the name was given due to its red color, which is associated with Spain.

Subsequently, several attempts were created to explain its name. It is said, for example, that Anne of Austria – who despite her name was Spanish – introduced cooks from Spain to the kitchens of the French court and that her cooks improved the French brown sauce by adding tomatoes. A similar tale refers to the Spanish cooks employed by Louis XIV's wife, Maria Theresa of Spain. There is no record of Spanish cooks in the kitchens of the French court, therefore, these explanations appear to be baseless. Another suggestion is that in the 17th century, Spanish bacon and ham were introduced as the meat for the stock on which the sauce is based, rather than the traditional beef.

History

A "Spanish Sauce" appears in Vincent La Chapelle's 1733 cookery book ''Le Cuisinier moderne'' as a sauce for pheasant. Marie-Antoine Carême printed a detailed recipe for "Sauce Espagnole" in his 1815 book ''Le Pâtissier royal parisien''. By the middle of the 19th century the sauce was familiar in the English-speaking world; in her ''Modern Cookery'' of 1845 Eliza Acton gave two recipes for it, one with added wine and one without. The sauce was included in Auguste Escoffier's 1903 classification of the five mother sauces, on which much French cooking depends.

Ingredients

La Chapelle's recipe calls for onions, carrots, gravy, ham essence, lemon, garlic, basil, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, green onion, white wine, and, optionally, partridges. Liver is added at the end of cooking.

Carême's recipe runs to more than 400 words. He calls for ham, veal, and partridges gently braised in water for two hours, after which roux is mixed in and the pan is returned to the stove for a further two hours or more. It is garnished with "parsley, chives, bay leaves, thyme, sweet basil, cloves, and parings of mushrooms".

Auguste Escoffier's recipe for espagnole, dating from 1903, is briefer, and it includes tomatoes, unlike older recipes. It calls for brown stock (made from veal, beef, and ham), brown roux, tomatoes, and mirepoix (diced onion, carrot, celery, and ham or lightly salted pork belly), simmered for up to eight hours.

Derivatives

Sauce espagnole is the basis for many French sauces. They include:

References

Sources

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See also

* Brown sauce
*Demi-glace

External links

''The Cook's Decameron'' from Project Gutenberg

Emeril Lagasse's recipe at emerils.com

{{portal bar, Food
Food and drink introduced in the 17th century
Brown sauces
French sauces
Mother sauces

de:Spanische Sauce#Spanische Sauce