''Sauce vierge'' ( French; in English: literally, "virgin sauce") is a French

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French word t ...

made from

olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: f ...

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

juice, chopped

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

and chopped

basil Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also kno ...

. Frequently, crushed

coriander seed Coriander (;

is added, and variations may include the addition of other herbs such as

chervil Chervil (; ''Anthriscus cerefolium''), sometimes called French parsley or garden chervil (to distinguish it from similar plants also called chervil), is a delicate annual herb related to parsley. It was formerly called myrhis due to its volat ...

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae that produces edible leaves and flowers. Their close relatives include the common onions, garlic, shallot, leek, scallion, and ...

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the central and eastern Mediterranean region (Sardinia, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, southern Italy, Greece, Por ...

, etc. The ingredients are combined and allowed to

infuse Infusion is the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, edible oil, oil or Ethanol, alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time (a process often call ...

macerate Maceration may refer to: * Maceration (food), in food preparation * Maceration (wine), a step in wine-making ** Carbonic maceration, a wine-making technique * Maceration (sewage), in sewage treatment * Maceration (bone), a method of preparing b ...

(depending on whether heat is applied or not) in the oil to create the sauce. The sauce is usually served with

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

, delicately flavoured white-fleshed fish such as

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

, sole, etc.; it is sometimes served over

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, are som ...

. The sauce was popularised in the 1980s by

Michel Guérard Michel Guérard (; born 27 March 1933) is a French chef, author, one of the founders of ''nouvelle cuisine'', and the inventor of ''cuisine minceur''. Early life and education Michel Guérard was born in 1933 in the Paris suburb of Vétheuil. At ...

, a French

chef A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...

, author, one of the founders of ''

nouvelle cuisine ''Nouvelle cuisine'' (; ) is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased e ...

'', and the inventor of ''

cuisine minceur Cuisine minceur (; ) is a style of cooking created by French chef Michel Guérard, which recreated lighter versions of traditional nouvelle cuisine dishes. Contemporary critics acknowledged that the minceur versions by Guérard tasted better and w ...

'', from

Eugénie-les-Bains Eugénie-les-Bains (; oc, Las Aigas) is a commune in the Landes department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Eugénie-les-Bains is best known for housing a spa resort and three restaurants, all belonging to chef Michel Guérard, invent ...

Aquitaine Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 January ...

, in south-western France; the sauce has since become a modern classic.Raffael, Michael (6 September 2007).
"Marco Pierre White Prepares Lobster with Sauce Vierge"
caterersearch.com. Retrieved 3 February 2011. In its original form, the sauce was intended as a

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

preparation and contained a lot of

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Allium fistulosum, Welsh onion and Allium chinense, Chinese onion. It is native to South A ...

. It was served either hot or cold after infusing the herbs in the oil.

References

{{tomato sauces French sauces Landes (department) Tomato sauces