Périgueux Sauce
This sauce is excellent served with little hot pies or pâté en croûte, with beef tournedos or pan-fried saddle of lamb, and of course on pasta.
Overview
An elegant, luxurious sauce featuring prized truffles and their precious juice. This refined reduction builds on concentrated veal stock, creating depth and umami-rich complexity with the indulgent flavour of black truffles.
Ingredients
Base & truffle
- 400 ml Veal stock
- 50 ml truffle juice
- 20 grams truffles (finely chopped or sliced)
Finishing
- 40 grams butter (chilled and diced)
- salt
- pepper
Method
Stage 1 - Reduce veal stock
- Bring the veal stock to the boil in a small saucepan and let bubble over a medium heat to reduce until it is thick enough to lightly coat the back of a spoon.
Stage 2 - Add truffle juice
- Add the truffle juice and cook for another 5 minutes.
Stage 3 - Add truffles
- Add the chopped truffles and let the sauce bubble briefly.
Stage 4 - Finish with butter
- Take the pan off the heat and add the butter, a piece at a time, swirling and rotating the pan to incorporate it.
- Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
Notes
- Truffle quality: Use genuine black truffles (Périgord) for authentic flavour; summer truffles have less potency.
- Truffle juice: Essential ingredient; use the precious liquid from canned or fresh truffles for maximum flavour.
- Timing: Prepare just before serving; hold briefly over gentle heat to maintain warmth without overcooking.
Serving
Serve immediately with beef tournedos, pan-fried saddle of lamb, hot pâté en croûte, or pasta. A small spoonful is sufficient given the rich flavor.
Storage
- Best eaten immediately after preparation (truffles lose nuance upon standing).
- Keeps refrigerated for 1 day; reheat gently without boiling.
- Does not freeze well; butter emulsion breaks and truffles become rubbery.
More like this
Andouille Skewers
A Cajun cookout skewer, the kind of thing that comes off the grill at a Louisiana backyard barbecue while the gumbo is finishing on the back burner. You take andouille (the heavily smoked, garlicky Cajun pork sausage) and cut it into thick coins, then thread them onto pre-soaked wooden skewers (or metal) with chunks of red and green pepper, red onion, and a few halved cherry tomatoes. Brush with a quick Cajun glaze of melted butter, garlic, brown sugar, hot sauce and Cajun seasoning. Onto a hot grill over high heat for just long enough to char the vegetables and bring the sausage shiny and sticky. Eaten straight off the skewer with a beer in the other hand, the smoke still hanging in the air.
Blackened Chicken
The Cajun classic invented by Paul Prudhomme in his New Orleans kitchen in the 1980s, the dish that put smoky char on the American restaurant menu for a decade. You build a bold spice mixture (paprika, garlic, onion, thyme, cayenne, salt and black pepper), dip butterflied chicken breasts in melted butter and press them firmly into the spice rub on both sides. Then they hit a screaming-hot cast-iron skillet for about three minutes per side, where the butter and spices char into a deep mahogany crust that locks the juices in and gives the chicken its defining smoky finish. The technique works equally well on fish (Prudhomme's original was redfish), pork or beef. Eaten sliced over a salad, layered in a sandwich with remoulade, or alongside dirty rice as a proper Cajun plate.
Butter Chicken
A rich, creamy tomato-based curry with mild spice and buttery finish. A BIR-style adaptation of murgh makhani.
Butter Chicken
The BIR icon: tandoori-grilled chicken finished in a velvety tomato-onion sauce enriched with double cream, butter and a hit of garam masala at the end. Mildly spiced, lightly sweet, deeply savoury. The sauce is built on a paste of cooked onion, tomato and cashews / almonds, finished off-heat with cold butter for the signature gloss.