Traditional Bread Sauce
Traditional bread sauce is one of the great, classic British sauces, but I think it has suffered from either not being made properly or being made from a mix or packet. The real thing is beautifully creamy and the perfect accompaniment to chicken or turkey.
Traditional bread sauce is one of the great, classic British sauces, but I think it has suffered from either not being made properly or being made from a mix or packet. The real thing is beautifully creamy and the perfect accompaniment to chicken or turkey.
- 1 large onion
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 large bay leaf
- 2 ounces butter
- 4 ounces freshly made white breadcrumbs a two-day-old white loaf with crusts removed will be hard enough
- 16 cloves or freshly grated nutmeg
- 8 single black peppercorns
- 1 pint full-fat milk
- 1 amount salt and freshly milled black pepper
- Carbohydrate 11.1474140625 g
- Cholesterol 124.02234375 mg
- Fat 48.59837875 g
- Fiber 1.5896749881506 g
- Protein 2.0568846875 g
- Saturated Fat 30.70249625 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (157g)
- Sodium 442.3368125 mg
- Sugar 9.5577390743494 g
- Trans Fat 3.62478937500001 g
- Calories 480 calories
Step-by-step
- Cut the onion in half and stick the cloves in it ? how many you use is a personal matter; I happen to like a pronounced flavour of clove. If you don''t like them at all, you can use some freshly grated nutmeg instead. Place the onion ? studded with cloves ? plus the bay leaf and the peppercorns, in a saucepan together with the milk. Add some salt then bring everything up to boiling point. Take off the heat, cover the pan and leave in a warm place for the milk to infuse for two hours or more.
- When you''re ready to make the sauce, remove the onion, bay leaf and peppercorns and keep them on one side. Stir the breadcrumbs into the milk and add 1 oz (25 g) of the butter. Leave the saucepan on a very low heat, stirring now and then, until the crumbs have swollen and thickened the sauce ? about 15 minutes. Now replace the clove-studded onion, the bay leaf and the peppercorns and again leave the pan in a warm place until the sauce is needed.
- Just before serving, remove the onion and spices. Reheat gently then beat in the remaining butter and the cream and taste to check the seasoning. Pour into a warm serving jug.
Swapping full-fat milk for skim milk fundamentally alters the emulsion, resulting in a thin sauce that fails to coat the back of a spoon because the butterfat content is too low to stabilize the suspension. Bread sauce relies on a deliberate sequence of milk infusion and starch hydration rather than a standard roux. Understanding how each component behaves under gentle heat ensures a velvety texture alongside roasted poultry.
- Infuse the dairy for at least two hours off the heat so the aromatic compounds from the bay leaf, peppercorns, and cloves fully permeate the liquid fat globules.
- Use two-day-old white bread with crusts removed; older bread has a lower moisture content, allowing the crumbs to absorb precisely one pint of milk without becoming pasty.
- Maintain a very low heat during the 15-minute thickening phase to prevent the dairy solids from scorching at the bottom of the saucepan.
- Scale quantities proportionally by weight rather than volume to maintain the exact ratio of starch to liquid, ensuring the sauce neither breaks nor remains too runny when multiplied for larger gatherings.
Finishing the mixture with heavy cream and cold butter just before serving adds gloss and richness through thermal emulsification. Properly rested bread sauce thickens further as it cools, requiring gentle reheating over minimal heat alongside regular stirring.
