Remoulade Sauce
In France, sauce remoulade is essentially a piquant mayonnaise, often made with hard-boiled eggs and spiked with mustard, herbs and pickles. Used to enhance all sorts of cold meats and vegetables, it is quite a common item. In fact, celery root with remoulade sauce is more or less the French equivalent of coleslaw, an indispensable adjunct to charcuterie (that is, cold cuts) and hence, ideal for taking on picnics.
In New Orleans, on the other hand, remoulade is the last name of shrimp remoulade, a signature dish of the city. The New World remoulade is sharper than that of the old, with more vegetables, fewer herbs and no pickles. Eggs, once common, have almost disappeared, so the sauce is now more like a vinaigrette, and though sauce and shrimp are quite distinct, they are indissolubly wed. Nobody in New Orleans uses the sauce on anything else. Shrimp remoulade is usually served as an appetizer, but it is dandy picnic fare, too.
*Remoulade Sauce
While most often served with shrimp, try remoulade sauce on top of crab, shrimp, lobster, salmon dishes, or seafood po' boy sandwiches. This wonderful cold sauce that has its origins in France and was then popularized in New Orleans.
FMM: This is the recipe we have used in place of cocktail sauce for dipping Shrimp Cocktail in. It is a nice alternative.
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Creole or brown mustard
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne
Combine the remoulade ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. Chill until ready to serve.
Old World Sauce Remoulde
"This is an idiot recipe," says its source, Carol Lundquist. "That's why I've kept it for so long." Lundquist got it from her friend, the New Orleans restaurateur Charlene Pitts, who got it through a friend who, somehow had gotten it from Antoine's, the legendary eatery almost synonymous with that city's finest food.
Unlike most Creole shrimp remoulade recipes, this one contains neither chopped parsley nor chopped celery, but about two tablespoons of each can be added shortly before serving, if desired. The specified brands are the ones the creator swears by.
2 hard-boiled egg yolks
1 raw egg yolk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, plus more to taste if desired
1 cup minus 1 tablespoon olive oil, preferably a golden one that tastes of olives, but not aggressively
2 tablespoons finely chopped sour gherkins, well-drained
1 tablespoon finely chopped capers, well-drained
1 tablespoon minced parsley
2 teaspoons minced fresh tarragon or a scant 1 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup heavy cream, not ultrapasteurized, or, failing that, 2 tablespoons each sour cream and milk (optional)
Mash the hard-boiled yolks into a completely smooth paste, then blend in the raw one. Beat in the mustard, then proceed as if making mayonnaise, adding the olive oil drop by drop and stirring constantly until a thick, smooth sauce is formed. At this point about half the oil will have been added. The remainder can be stirred in as a very thin stream, but move conservatively so the sauce doesn't curdle.
When the oil has all been added, stir in the gherkins, capers, parsley, tarragon, anchovy and lemon juice, and allow the sauce to sit for about five minutes before tasting. Taste and adjust the seasonings to suit your own palate, aiming for a sauce that's sharp but smooth, with no one strong flavor predominating.
That's it. Use the remoulade as is with meat and eggs; thin with the dairy product if using it as a dressing for vegetable salads.
The sauce will keep for several days in the refrigerator. Be sure to let it come to room temperature before stirring so it doesn't curdle but otherwise, in view of those eggs, be sure to keep it cold. Makes about 1 1/4 cups of very rich sauce.
