To make sauce supreme, simmer two cups of chicken veloute with a cup of cream until reduced by a third and thick enough to coat a spoon, then finish off the heat with a knob of butter and a few drops of lemon. Season with salt and white pepper and serve over poached chicken.
What is sauce supreme?
Supreme is what the French sauce system calls a daughter sauce: take a mother, here chicken veloute, add one defining enrichment, here cream, and reduce until the two become a third thing. The name is a claim, and an earned one, this was the sauce of the grand hotel dinner, poured over poached breasts and vol-au-vents when that was the height of glamour.
For a home cook its value is the lesson: once you can make veloute, supreme is fifteen unattended minutes away, and the same pattern unlocks the rest of the family. The sauce should be pale ivory, utterly smooth, and just thick enough to nap a piece of chicken without sliding off.
What goes in sauce supreme?
- ·2 cups chicken veloute (1 oz butter, 1 oz flour, 2 cups chicken stock)
- ·1 cup heavy cream
- ·1 tbsp cold butter, to finish
- ·A few drops of lemon juice
- ·Salt and white pepper
- ·Optional: 4-5 mushroom stems simmered along, the classical aromatics
Two parts veloute to one part cream, reduced by roughly a third. The finishing butter and lemon are small but audible: the butter rounds it, the lemon keeps all that dairy from going flat.
How do you make sauce supreme?
- Make the veloute: blond roux of an ounce each butter and flour, whisk in two cups of warm chicken stock, simmer 10 minutes, skimming.
- Add the cream, and the mushroom stems if using, and bring back to a gentle simmer.
- Reduce 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until it coats the back of a spoon and holds a line drawn by your finger.
- Strain for a formal finish.
- Off the heat, swirl in the cold butter and a few drops of lemon. Season with salt and white pepper.
- Serve immediately over poached or gently sauteed chicken, rice, or eggs.
What should you know before making sauce supreme?
- The stock decides everything. A supreme built on bouillon-cube stock tastes like a cream of nothing, use the best chicken stock in the house.
- It holds thirty minutes in a warm water bath with parchment pressed on the surface to prevent skin.
- Leftovers become tomorrow's pot pie or the fastest chicken-and-rice dinner alive.
Where did sauce supreme come from?
Escoffier fixed sauce supreme in Le Guide Culinaire in 1903 as the crowning derivative of chicken veloute, the sauce that gave poached poultry its place on the grand menu. Chicken supreme, the dish, still means a breast wearing this sauce.
Drawn from the public-domain text of Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire (1903).
What can you make from sauce supreme?
Common questions.
What is the difference between veloute and supreme?
Cream, and reduction. Veloute is the mother: roux plus stock. Supreme is that veloute enriched with cream and reduced until it naps a spoon. Same pan, one more step.
Can I use milk instead of cream?
Not here, milk thins the sauce exactly when it should be thickening and can split at a reduction simmer. Half-and-half survives but the sauce stays looser. Cream is the recipe.
What do I serve sauce supreme with?
Poached or pan-cooked chicken first, then rice, egg dishes, vol-au-vents, and steamed vegetables that can carry a rich sauce, asparagus especially.