Recipe Source: Atkinson, Catherine with Christine France and Maggie Mayhew. 400 Sauces. Anness Publishing, London, 2007 p. 52
I recently learned that we were hosting a dinner party. It's the sort of thing that I learned about the night before, largely because that's when the party was organized. (It's okay. The Spouse cleaned the kitchen, so it's all good.) I wanted to make a recipe that I found in an issue of Martha Stewart Living, specifically the Winter Herb Canneloni. I'd decided that I wanted to make it a couple of weeks before, and for various reasons the dish kept getting pushed back. As a result, the heavy cream that was required for the Parmesan Cream Sauce part of the recipe had gone bad. (I had a very little heavy cream, but not enough for the recipe.) I cursed like a New Jersey sailor for a few minutes, and then I thought of an alternative.
I've used a veloute sauce before, as a base for another dish. Veloute is a good traditional sauce in its own right and is a base for quite a few other dishes. I decided that I would use a veloute as the base for my sauce. The thing is, the dish really wanted cheese in the sauce. No problem. I added some cheese to the sauce. Since the name veloute derives from the velvety texture of the sauce, I decided to call my sauce velour: kind of like velvet, but cheesy.
Yes, it's a bad pun.
Anyway, I did a few things differently from the original and from the last time I did this. For starters, instead of chicken stock or turkey stock I used Lemony Vegetable Broth, because that's what I had on hand. To minimize the number of dishes I used I heated that stock up in the microwave. This gave the finished product a delightfully lemony flavor that I personally really enjoyed. I also had a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream but no light cream, so I used that.
Velour Sauce (makes about 2 cups)
1 pint Lemony Vegetable Broth
2 tablespoons butter
1 ounce flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 ounce grated pecorino cheese
Equipment:
- Microwave
- Saucepan
- This recipe is unusual for me in that it involves the use of the microwave. That's because I had to thaw the Lemony Vegetable Broth, not having done it the usual way as I didn't know I'd need it. Use the microwave to defrost and heat your broth, but don't let it boil. If you'd rather do this on the stovetop in a saucepan (which would be my first choice, believe me) go for it.
- In the saucepan, melt the butter.
- Stir in the flour. Stir constantly over a moderate heat until the color becomes that of "pale straw."
- Remove the pan from heat and stir in the hot stock.
- Return to heat and bring to a boil. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.
- Reduce heat to a very low simmer and cook until reduced by a quarter. Stir it every once in a while.
- Just before serving, remove from heat. Stir in the cream and cheese. Stir until the cheese is nicely melted.
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