Velouté aux Grenouilles, otherwise Sicilienne

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •6-quart (5.7 L) heavy saucepan
• •12-inch (30 cm) wide sauté pan with lid
• •High-powered blender or food processor
• •Fine-mesh chinois or sturdy fine sieve
• •Whisk and ladle
• •Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

1. 1

   Toss without colour

   Reserve a teaspoon of the tossing butter, then melt the remainder in a wide sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add the frogs' legs in two batches and turn them through the butter for 1 to 2 minutes, just until their surfaces lose their raw translucence. They must not brown. If the butter foam begins to tan, lift the pan from the heat immediately and add a spoonful of the measured wine to cool it; use the reserved butter for the second batch.

2. 2

   Poach with lemon

   Return all the legs to the pan and add the remaining white wine and the lemon juice. Cover and hold the liquid at the faintest tremble for 10 minutes, turning the legs once. The flesh should be opaque, firm but not tight, and at least 145°F (63°C) at the thickest joint. If the liquid threatens to disappear, add a tablespoon of water and lower the heat. A hard boil toughens the meat and drives away the delicate wine aroma.

3. 3

   Pick and purée

   Lift the legs from their liquor and let them cool only until they can be handled. Reserve every drop of the poaching liquid. Strip the meat meticulously from the bones and run your fingers through it twice; a home blender must never receive the bones that a professional mortar and tammy once managed together. Blend the meat, reserved liquor, and 1 cup of the measured fish velouté until completely smooth. If the blades turn without catching the purée, add another ladleful of velouté, not water.

4. 4

   Marry the velouté

   Whisk the frog purée into the remaining fish velouté in a heavy saucepan. Bring it slowly to a bare simmer and cook for 7 to 8 minutes, stirring the bottom often so the fine purée cannot catch. The soup should move freely rather than sit in mounds; if the prepared velouté was too thick, loosen it with boiling water one tablespoon at a time. Keep the simmer quiet. Vigorous boiling muddies both the flavour and the colour.

5. 5

   Pass it perfectly smooth

   Pass the soup through a fine-mesh chinois or sturdy fine sieve into a clean saucepan, pressing with a ladle or flexible spatula. Stop pressing when only dry fibres or hard grit remain. Taste a spoonful for texture; if there is the least graininess, pass it a second time. This replaces the tammy, and it is not fussy work. The perfectly smooth body is part of the dish.

6. 6

   Temper the liaison

   Reserve 2 tablespoons of the cold cream. Whisk the yolks with the remaining cream in a bowl, then slowly whisk in about 1 cup of the hot soup. Take the saucepan off the heat and whisk in this tempered liaison. Return it to the lowest heat and stir continuously until the soup reaches 165 to 170°F (74 to 77°C) and lightly veils the spoon. Never let it boil. If the first tiny grains appear, lift the pan off the heat, whisk in the reserved cold cream, and pass the soup through the clean sieve once more. Ça se rattrape.

7. 7

   Mount the cold butter

   Keep the saucepan completely off the heat. Add the cold butter several cubes at a time, whisking gently until each addition disappears before the next goes in. The velouté should become glossy and slightly fuller without turning heavy. If yellow beads of butter begin to float, stop adding butter, whisk 1 tablespoon of cold water in a clean bowl, then whisk in the oily soup one ladle at a time until the emulsion closes; return it to the saucepan without reheating. Taste for salt and serve immediately in warmed bowls, absolutely plain. No herbs, croutons, or decorative frog leg. The flavour carries. À table!

Chef Tips

• •Plain frozen frogs' legs from a good fishmonger are an honest choice, especially when fresh ones are uncertain. Thaw them slowly in the refrigerator, inspect every joint, and dry them thoroughly before the butter; wet legs dilute the poaching liquor.
• •The fish velouté must be delicate and rather thin before it enters this recipe. It should pour in a broad ribbon, not sit on the spoon like a finished sauce. Its separate preparation is useful kitchen work, while repeating that whole method inside this soup would only rebuild the brigade around one pot.
• •Two hundred grams of finishing butter looks bold because it is bold, and it preserves the source proportion. Use sweet, fresh butter and keep it very cold so it emulsifies gradually. We don't apologize for butter.
• •Do not garnish the Sicilienne. Parsley, croutons, roe, or a posed frog leg would interrupt the smooth texture and contradict the source. Serve small bowls and pour a restrained dry white such as Chablis or Mâcon-Villages, whose acidity can meet the lemon without bullying the frogs.
• •The source permits the preparation as a cream, but that is a separate expression of the soup. This recipe follows the velouté exactly, with fish velouté as its foundation and ordinary liaison at the finish; extra cream would soften the flavour that is meant to carry alone.

Advance Preparation

• •Prepare the delicate fish velouté up to two days ahead, cool it quickly, and keep it covered in the refrigerator. Reheat it only when the frog purée is ready.
• •The recipe may be completed through the final straining earlier on the day of service. Cool the base promptly, refrigerate it, then reheat it gently before adding the liaison and butter.
• •The liaison and cold-butter finish must wait until serving. Once bound, the soup cannot be boiled or held over direct heat without risking curdled yolks and a broken emulsion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 240g)