Sauce Americaine: The Mother Of All Seafood Sauces ( made with crabs)

Join my online French cooking classes : https://learn.thefrenchcookingacademy.com/p/get-started-with-french-cooking Sauce Americaine (Translated American sauce) is part of the great French seafood sauces dating back from the 1860's.

This sauce is made with fresh crustaceous ( lobster or crabs) that are then pan fried in olive oil, flambee with cognac, deglaze with white wine and cooke in a bath of freshly made fish stock with an addition of tomatoes garlic, shallot and carrots.

That amazing French seafood sauce can be served with any fish or seafood you like. if you want you can also use on its own and serve as a lobster or crab bisque alongside a few pan fried garlicky fresh croutons.

Cookware and ingredients for that recipe:

French style casserole pan:
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Pestle and mortar:
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Ingredients:
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1 kg of crustaceous : ( small crab, lobster or scampi ) can be only shells and legs when using lobster.
100 grams carrots
100 grams onions
40 grams shallots
400 grams chopped tomatoes ( can tomatoes are fine)
2 garlic cloves ( bruised)
bouquet garni :( thym, parsley stokes, bayleaf, green part of of leek leaf)
3 tablespoons of olive oil
parsley: a handfull (chopped)
or
tarragon a handful (chopped)

To deglaze:
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50 ml cognac (Flambee)
200 ml dry white wine ( sauvignon blanc is fine)

Fish stock :
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1 kg of fishbones
50 grams shallot (finely sliced)
120 grams of onions (finely sliced)
70 grams carrot roughly diced (mirepoix)
1 small bouquet garni ( 2 twigs of thyme plus 1 bayleaf)
1.5 litre water
100 ml white wine
1 tablespoon of plain butter
(No need for salt and pepper)

Thickening agent:
beurre manie: 20 grams of butter and 20 grams of plain flour mixed together by hand in a small bowl.
or
starch 1 tablespoon diluted in a little water

Cooking times:

- Fish stock: 40 minutes

- American Sauce: 30 minutes uncovered. ( 15 minutes in the first part then another 15 minutes after the shells have been crushed and re added to the pan)

reduction: another 10 minutes at then when the sauce has been filtered and the thickening agent added. make sure you add the thickening agent bit by bit until you get the desired thickness ( the sauce must be just thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon)

Wine pairing: dry white wines such a Chablis grand cru or a good champagne.

Note for that recipe: the authentic way to do that sauce is to make it with 1 or 2 whole lobsters that you would chop large chunks ( keep the head shells to decorate). To do so, cook the lobsters chunks for the first 15 minutes as shown in the video and when the lobster is cooked, remove the flesh for the shells ( reserving them for later for serving) then, once the meat is reserved, crush the lobster shells and legs and add them back in the sauce. leave the sauce to cook for another 15 minutes. when the sauce is cooked and thickened, serve the pieces of lobster flesh on a plate, cover with plenty of sauce and decorate the plate with the lobster heads towering up with a bit of parsley (and eventually a set of small fish detailed in puff pastry and cooked in the oven). beside of each lobster shell


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