[Sca-cooks] Salisbury Steak

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Sue Clemenger:
>Sauce Robert?
>--maire, wishing she was having some of this for dinner

There are several versions of Sauce Robert, including a relatively 
modern one you'll find in cookbooks by people like Escoffier, and as 
recently as the works of Raymond Sokolov.

It's mentioned in the Viandier de Taillevent, but no recipe is given, 
and some roughly contemporary source (I forget which at the moment) 
says it involved shredded onions, caramelized in the pan, the whole 
thing deglazed with verjuice or wine and vinegar, with mustard added. 
There are also early versions which involve butter, vinegar or 
verjuice, mustard and capers, a little like a mustardy beurre blanc. 
Modern versions call for onions to be caramelized, then cooked with 
demiglaze or brown sauce, vinegar, mustard, and then it all gets 
strained.

Today it's associated with pork and rabbit dishes, I believe, but at 
one time it was popular with fried fish.

I'm pretty sure every version I've seen involves vinegar or verjuice 
and mustard; that seems to be the immutable characteristic.

Adamantius

-- 
  "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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