''Suprême'' sauce is a classic and popular "daughter sauce" of

French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...

. It is made from

mother sauce In French cuisine, the mother sauces (french: sauces mères), also known as in French, are a group of sauces upon which many other sauces"daughter sauces" or are based. Different sets and classifications of mother sauces have been proposed sinc ...

velouté, then thickened with cream.

Recipes

According the ''

Larousse Gastronomique ' () is an encyclopedia of gastronomy. The majority of the book is about French cuisine, and contains recipes for French dishes and cooking techniques. The first edition included few non-French dishes and ingredients; later editions include many ...

'', a seminal work of French ''

haute cuisine ''Haute cuisine'' (; ) or ''grande cuisine'' is the cuisine of "high-level" establishments, gourmet restaurants, and luxury hotels. ''Haute cuisine'' is characterized by the meticulous preparation and careful presentation of food at a high pri ...

'', first published in 1938, ''suprême'' sauce is made from the mother sauce ''velouté'' (white stock thickened with a white roux—in the case of ''suprême'' sauce, chicken stock is usually preferred), reduced with heavy

cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...

or ''

crème fraîche Crème fraîche (English pronunciation: , , lit. "fresh cream") is a dairy product, a soured cream containing 10–45% butterfat, with a pH of approximately 4.5., p. 181''f'' It is soured with a bacterial culture. European labeling regulations ...

'', and then strained through a fine sieve. A light squeeze of lemon juice is commonly added. In many cases, chefs also choose to add finely chopped and lightly sautéed mushrooms to the dish, although this was not specifically mentioned in ''Larousse Gastronomique'' or by

Auguste Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...

, the "Emperor of the World's Kitchens", who was an arbiter of classic French cuisine. It is possible to make a similar sauce to pass for ''sauce suprême'' by taking

béchamel sauce Bechamel sauce ( ) is a sauce traditionally made from a white roux (butter and flour in a 1:1 mixture by weight) and milk. Bechamel may also be referred to as besciamella (Italy), besamel (Greece), or white sauce (U.S.). French, Italian and Greek ...

(a classic

made with butter, flour and milk), with a

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, a ...

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

(effectively a shortcut to making a ''velouté'' by combining the roux and stock elements) and

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

. ''

The Cook's Decameron ''The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste, Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes'' is a cookbook by Emily Waters (as Mrs. W. G. Waters) first published in 1901. Introduced in the form of a story inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's ...

'' suggests the following recipe: the sauce is made by placing three-quarters of a

pint The pint (, ; symbol pt, sometimes abbreviated as ''p'') is a unit of volume or capacity in both the imperial unit, imperial and United States customary units, United States customary measurement systems. In both of those systems it is tradition ...

(350ml) of white sauce into a

saucepan Cookware and bakeware is food preparation equipment, such as cooking pots, pans, baking sheets etc. used in kitchens. Cookware is used on a stove or range cooktop, while bakeware is used in an oven. Some utensils are considered both cookware ...

, and when it is nearly boiling, adding half a

cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay, ...

(120 ml) of concentrated fowl stock. It should then be reduced until the sauce is quite thick, passed through a ''

chinois A chinois (; ) is a conical sieve with an extremely fine mesh. It is used to strain custards, purees, soups, and sauces, producing a very smooth texture. It can also be used to dust food with a fine layer of powdered ingredient. Etymology ' ...

strainer A sieve, fine mesh strainer, or sift, is a device for separating wanted elements from unwanted material or for controlling the particle size distribution of a sample, using a screen such as a woven mesh or net or perforated sheet material. T ...

into a ''

bain-marie A bain-marie (; also known as a water bath or double boiler), a type of heated bath, is a piece of equipment used in science, industry, and cooking to heat materials gently or to keep materials warm over a period of time. A bain-marie is also us ...

'' and have added two

tablespoon A tablespoon (tbsp. , Tbsp. , Tb. , or T.) is a large spoon. In many English-speaking regions, the term now refers to a large spoon used for serving; however, in some regions, it is the largest type of spoon used for eating. By extension, the ter ...

s (30 ml) of cream.Waters, Mrs. W. G. (William George)
''The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste, Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes''
a public-domain cookbook.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Supreme sauce French sauces White sauces

Recipes

See also

References