Rubens Sauce

Ingredients

• 100 g mirepoix (vegetable base), ordinary, cut into brunoise (fine dice)
• 2 deciliters white wine
• 3 deciliters fumet de poisson (fish stock concentrate)
• 4 deciliters reduced cooking liquid
• 1 tablespoon Madeira wine
• 2 whole egg yolks
• 100 g butter, unsalted
• 30 g red butter (beurre rouge — compound butter made with coral or lobster roe)
• 1 dash anchovy essence

Instructions

1. Sauté the mirepoix, cut into fine brunoise, in butter until golden. Moisten with white wine and fish stock (fumet). Simmer for 25 minutes.
2. Pass the sauce through a fine chinois (conical sieve). Degrease (remove fat) thoroughly after letting it rest for a few minutes. Reduce the sauce to 4 deciliters.
3. Add the Madeira wine.
4. Thicken the reduction by whisking in the egg yolks (tempering them first to avoid scrambling). Mount the sauce with butter (monter au beurre — work in the unsalted butter, then the red butter off heat). Season and finish with a dash of anchovy essence.
5. This sauce is especially suited to boiled or poached fish.