Do you know what an attelet is? I didn't. I had to look it up. Autocorrect wanted to change the word to "athlete," but I insisted I had spelled it correctly. That taught me that an attelet is a small, metal skewer, often decorative and made of precious metals such as gold or silver. Attelets are used to hold food, often hors d'oeuvres, to display it elegantly.
So now you know. An attelet is basically a small, decorative metal spit used to show off food in a fancy way.
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| An attelet. Click here for attribution. |
I was preparing for a Civil War reenactment and looking through the 1833 cookbook for recipes that I could make as a demonstration item. That is, I was cooking over charcoal while wearing a period outfit and talking to the public about what I was making. I needed to be able to fix it in front of the public, with the exception of when I walked into the tent to get items from the ice chest.
This sauce looked interesting and tasty. I didn't have metal attelets, but hey, we were in a war setting, so wooden skewers would have to do!
My plan was to make the sauce to serve with thinly sliced, grilled beef on skewers. I did that and then made the recipe again at home for this post.
The recipe is from Mrs. N.K.M. Lee's The Cook's Own Book, page 182, in the sauce section, which is why the "________" is in the title. Click here to see an 1854 reprint of her book.
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| Sauce ingredients. |
Mix the mushrooms, shallots, and parsley and then sauté them in the butter over low heat until the shallots are translucent.
Sprinkle the flour over the mixture (avoid lumps) and stir well. Let it cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
Whisk in the broth, stirring it vigorously.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to make the mixture simmer. Add the pepper and salt to taste.
When the mixture thickens slightly, remove from the heat. Add the yolks by pouring them in while stirring the broth briskly.
Once the yolks are thoroughly mixed, put the sauce back on the heat while stirring well to slightly cook the yolks.
Put the beef strips on the skewers and grill the meat.
Serve the skewers on a plate and the sauce in an open cup or bowl. Dunk the beef in the sauce to eat.
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| Roughly equal parts. |
| The finished sauce. |
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| Grilling the meat. |
My Notes
At the reenactment, I didn't have parsley. I aimed for roughly equal parts of shallots and mushrooms. In both attempts, I used baby portabella mushrooms.
The idea is to make a roux with the butter and flour, then use the roux to thicken the broth. The egg yolks make it even thicker and richer.
The broth I used had salt in it, so salt your sauce to taste.
The Verdict
Oh my, that is one good sauce. At the reenactment, I walked around with the platter of skewers and a cup of sauce. People used their fingers to pull the meat off the skewer and dunk it into the sauce, then pop the meat into their mouths. You could see the sauce was thick enough to stick to the meat and not drip all over when transported to a mouth.
It was similarly thick when I made the sauce at home.
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| Note the thick sauce. |
The flavor was rich with shallot and mushroom flavors, enhanced by the savory umami of the beef broth. The pepper added a nice bitter flavor, too.
Everyone in both attempts enjoyed it. I had sauce left over from the reenactment, so I served it as a gravy over mashed potatoes, which was quite excellent. At home, I used the extra gravy as a sauce over baked chicken thighs; this was also good.
I think the reenactment version was a bit tastier; I probably used more shallots. I wasn't measuring except by visually comparing quantities. I am usually moving quickly, too.
Success! Quite a wonderful success, really. Make this sauce as it is easy and tasty.
I think I would use bigger chunks of beef instead. The very thin slices grilled quickly (a bonus, so the sauce didn't get cold or get overcooked) but they did get chewy. I probably need to improve my grilling skills.
