Mousseuse Sauce

Ingredients

• 509 grams beurre manié (kneaded butter), softened
• 8 grams fine salt
• 1 quarter lemon juice
• 4 decilitres cold water
• 4 large spoonfuls whipped cream, very firm

Instructions

1. Heat a small sauté pan and pour boiling water through it, then dry thoroughly.
2. Place the softened beurre manié into the pan. Season with fine salt and work it with a whisk, adding gradually: the juice of one quarter lemon and the cold water, a little at a time.
3. Fold in the very firm whipped cream last.
4. Escoffier notes that although classified as a sauce, this preparation is truly a beurre composé (compound butter), served with boiled fish. The heat from the fish alone is sufficient to melt the butter, and both its appearance and flavor are infinitely more pleasant than those of melted butter.