Normande

Fish velouté enriched with mushroom liquor, cream and yolks. The classic sauce for sole, and the reason fish trimmings are worth keeping.

500 ml — fish stock

25 g — plain flour

25 g — butter

120 g — button mushrooms

80 ml — dry white wine

2 pc — egg yolk

100 ml — double cream

10 ml — lemon juice

5 g — salt

Reduce the wine with the mushroom trimmings, add the fish stock and build the velouté on that. Fish stock is ready in twenty minutes and turns bitter at forty — this is the one stock you can overcook.

Strain it, reduce to a coating consistency and only then think about enriching. A thin sauce cannot be rescued with cream; it can only be diluted further.

Beat the yolks with the cream, temper, and hold the sauce under 80 °C from then on. If it must wait, stand the pan in warm water rather than back on the flame.