should be allowed, provided one have excellent stock and wellmade roux. More often than not this work is done in two stages, thus: after having despumated the Espagnole for six or eight hours the first day, it is put on the fire the next day with half its volume of stock, and it is left to despumate a few hours more before it is finally strained.
Summing up my opinion on this subject, I can only give my colleagues the following advice, based upon long experience:—
1. Only use strong, clear stock with a decided taste.
2. Be scrupulously careful of the roux, however it may be made. By following these two rules, a clear, brilliant, and consistent Espagnole will always be obtained in a fairly short time.
This is the Espagnole sauce, having reached the limit of perfection by final despumation. It is obtained by reducing one quart of Espagnole and one quart of first-class brown stock until its volume is reduced to nine-tenths of a quart. It is then put through a strainer into a bain-marie of convenient dimensions, and it is finished, away from the fire, with one-tenth of a quart of excellent sherry. Cover the bain-marie, or slightly butter the top to avoid the formation of a skin. This sauce is the base of all the smaller brown sauces.
Practical men are not agreed as to the need of Lenten Espagnole. The ordinary Espagnole being really a neutral sauce in flavour, it is quite simple to give it the necessary flavour by the addition of the required quantity of fish fumet. It is only, therefore, when one wishes to conform with the demands of a genuine Lent sauce that a fish Espagnole is needed. And, certainly in this case, nothing can take its place.
The preparation of this Espagnole does not differ from that of the ordinary kind, except that the bacon is replaced by mushroom parings in the Mirepoix, and that the sauce must be despumated for only one hour.
This sauce takes the place of the ordinary Espagnole, for Lenten preparations, in every case where the latter is generally used, in Gratins, in the Genevoise sauce, &c.
