Celery Sauce

Sauce au Céleri (celery sauce) teaches the discipline of a purée sauce: the vegetable must become completely tender before it can become completely smooth. Rush the poach and no blender will erase the strings. Cook the hearts until a knife passes through without resistance, and the sauce will be pale, glossy, and quietly savory beneath boiled or braised poultry.

The old formula assumed a saucier on staff, consommé never off the fire, a mortar, a tammy, and enough sauce for a full service. At home, use finished consommé and cream sauce, a blender, and a fine-mesh sieve. The mortar and tammy were brigade scaffolding and can go; the consommé poach, the equal measure of celery purée and cream sauce, and the warm bain-marie (hot-water bath) are the dish and must stay. Six small hearts make about two quarts, manageable by one cook, one stove, one evening.

The step that matters is tenderness before puréeing. Test the thick base of the largest heart, not its leafy end. If the knife meets even a thread of resistance, keep poaching; patience here is cheaper than forcing celery fiber through a sieve.