Super Bowl vs. Downton Abbey: The Secret is in the Sauce

This past weekend marked the annual battle for the remote between Super Bowl and Downton Abbey fans.  Downton confidently secured 2nd place in TV ratings, topping all other non-football shows.
Sadly for football fans, it appears that the curse of the one-sided bowl game appears to be back after a few years of great games. However as a Downton foodie fan, I also felt a little let down.  Downton had an amazing half time show with the introduction of a jazz band playing for Robert’s party (do they know what they know the other is playing?), but we never did learn what his favorite food was.
Today‘s dish is Anchovy Sauce, a simple sauce Daisy was preparing for the fish soufflé early in the episode (S4E5), hoping that Alfred would take an interest

Savour every moment of Downton my friends, we are now past the half way point, and soon it will time for another long spell of Downton downtime.

Here are a few additional spices to heighten the experience of this season:

Sauces are what make French cuisine so distinctive. Hundreds of sauces were
developed over hundreds of years.  Auguste Escoffier, the famous Edwardian chef, was key to bringing French cuisine to the fine tables in the grand houses of the Edwardian era. He is credited for narrowing the list to five mother sauces. From these five, many variations, or daughter sauces can be made.

We have made hollandaise before (see link below) and today we will show you the béchamel.  There are recipes for the other basics in my book Abbey Cooks Entertains:

1. Béchamel Sauce (white sauce)
2. Espagnole Sauce (brown sauce)
3. Hollandaise Sauce (yellow sauce)
4. Tomato Sauce (red sauce)
5. Velouté Sauce (white sauce)

If you know how to make béchamel sauce, a simple white sauce, you can easily create an infinite number of other sauces.  You may recall that Alfred jumped into help Mrs. Patmore during the big house party to make the béchamel.  He also “enriched the béchamel” for the savoury he prepared for the Crawley family in last week’s episode.  This was actually the first sauce I ever learned to make as a child, the base for my favorite summer dish of cream peas on toast.  It was one way to use up all the peas grown in our family garden.

So on to the anchovy sauce.  Some chefs will make also use the hollandaise or the velouté (using fish stock) sauce as a base.  You could add a bit of fish sauce or more anchovies to make the flavour more intense if you like.  Daisy served it with the fish dish, but try it with pasta.

Makes 1 ½ cups sauce

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp. unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk, heated to almost boiling
• Salt and Freshly ground pepper
• 3-4 anchovy fillets, mashed (you can also use anchovy paste)

Method

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the flour to make a roux, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but is not brown, about 2 minutes.
2. Add the hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens.  Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more.
3. Remove from the heat.  Mix in the mashed anchovies. 
4. To cool this sauce for later use, cover it with wax paper or pour a film of milk over it to prevent a skin from forming.

Print

Anchovy Sauce

Cuisine Edwardian

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp. unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 cups milk heated to almost boiling
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 3-4 anchovy fillets, mashed (you can also use anchovy paste)

Instructions

• Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the flour to make a roux, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but is not brown, about 2minutes.
• Add the hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens.  Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3minutes more.
• Remove from the heat.  Mix in the mashed anchovies.
• To cool this sauce for later use, cover it with wax paper or pour a film of milk over it

Your Downton S4 Survival Guide