Allemande Sauce

By
Danilo Alfaro
Danlio Alfaro
Danilo Alfaro
Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks.
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Updated on 01/6/22
Allemande sauce
Peter Williams / Getty Images
Prep: 5 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Total: 25 mins
Servings: 2 servings
Yield: 2 cups

Allemande sauce, also called German sauce, is a finished sauce made by thickening a veal velouté with a liaison, or mixture of egg yolks and heavy cream. In French cuisine, this sauce is considered a "daughter" or "small" sauce of velouté, which is one of the five mother sauces alongside tomato, espagnole, béchamel, and hollandaise. These five versatile sauces give origin to many others that are used in a multitude of dishes—if you've ever had delicious Mornay, Bercy, Madeira, Dijon, or Provençale, then you've sampled one of many small sauces. Our classic recipe for Allemande sauce makes a perfect accompaniment to any meat or vegetables, as its mild but rich flavors make it perfect on poached fish or chicken, veal, beef, vegetables, or eggs.

This is a delicate sauce that requires a lot of attention to detail, so it's very important to follow the instructions to the T to avoid the sauce from splitting or the eggs from curdling once you combine the hot and cold ingredients. The recipe requires 2 cups of premade veal velouté, so plan ahead as the velouté itself requires 35 minutes of preparation and cooking. Though many think of Allemande as a mother sauce because many other sauces derive from it, Allemande is actually a small sauce. The confusion comes from that simple fact that Allemande produces many other sauces, such as poulette, a delicious and creamy sauce with mushrooms, parsley, and lemon.

Allemande sauce is sometimes mistakenly called sauce Parisienne. Sauce Parisienne is similar, but it uses cream cheese instead of the egg-cream liaison, and so it is its own sauce altogether with a creamier texture and different flavor profile. Transform your next dinner party by offering a gravy boat with Allemande sauce to drizzle on all sorts of main and side dishes, such as grilled asparagus, roast beef, chicken roulade, salmon, roasted Brussel sprouts, bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, green beans, or roasted potatoes. For your own twist, add mushrooms, herbs, or other seasonings and make your own take on this delicious preparation.

Ingredients

Steps to Make It

  1. Gather the ingredients.

  2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the velouté over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and reduce for about 5 minutes or until the total volume has reduced by about a cup.

  3. In a stainless steel or glass bowl, beat together the cream and egg yolk until smooth. This egg-cream mixture is your liaison.

  4. Slowly add about a cup of the hot velouté into the liaison, whisking constantly so that the egg yolk doesn't curdle from the heat.

  5. Gradually whisk the warm liaison back into the velouté.

  6. Bring the sauce back to a gentle simmer for just a moment, but don't let it boil.

  7. Season to taste with kosher salt, white pepper, and lemon juice. Strain and serve right away.