Also Called Blonde Sauce & Parisienne Sauce
This is a classic French sauce and a variation of Veloute Sauce but made with egg yolks creating an even richer sauce. Most often served with egg dishes and poached fish, however, this sauce can also be served with poultry, veal and vegetables.
Classic French Sauces
Depending on who you ask, there a number of classic French sauces including the Five Mother Sauces as described by Chef Marie-Antoine Carême and Chef Auguste Escoffier. As mentioned above, Veloute sauce is one of those 5 Mother Sauces so I suppose variations made from these 5 classics can also be called “classic French sauces”.
Allemande’s Name History – I read this pale, yellow sauce Allemande translates to “German Sauce”. When War World I broke out, Chef Auguste Escoffier renamed it to Sauce Blonde but today it is usually called Sauce Parisienne.
IMPORTANT – This sauce does not hold up very well and should be used as soon as it is made. If not handled properly, the sauce will separate and you’ll have to start all over again.
Allemande Sauce Recipe
Equipment
- medium saucepan
- small saucepan
- sieve or chinois
- bowl for the finished sauce
- whisk
- wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 1¾ oz butter
- 1¾ oz flour
- 2 pints chicken stock or veal stock
- 4 egg yolks
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat the stock in the small saucepan. Then in the other saucepan melt the butter and add the flour to it. Stir with a wooden spoon over a low heat for 2-3 minutes to create a blond roux.
- Make the sauce - Gradually, add the hot stock into the pan with the flour and melted butter and stir constantly to blend the ingredients together. Bring to the boil, stirring all the time.If you stop stirring or the leave the sauce on the heat unattended, it will stick and burn.
- Lower the heat and simmer until the sauce reaches the desired thickness, about 10-15 minutes.
- Season the sauce with salt and a couple of turns of pepper and allow it to cool for a couple of minutes.
- Finally, beat the egg yolks into the sauce one at a time until well incorporated.
- Strain the sauce through the sieve into a bowl or another pan.
Neither Carême or Escoffier mention mother sauces in their writing. Carême mentions a few sauces as the “grande dames” of sauces. The first hint of Escoffier claiming five mother sauces and others sauces deriving from them comes from the translator of the first edition of “Guide Culinaire”. The book, “A Guide to Modern Cookery” published in 1907, has an added paragraph discussing the “mother sauces” that is not any of the French editions. Escoffier neither spoke or read English so this paragraph was probably added without his knowledge.