Sauce Gribiche

In researching home cheese making, I can across a very memorable quote from Rogue Creamery's Carey Bryant, "Making cheese with pasteurized milk is like baking a cake with cooked eggs." It was a very simple, but spot-on description that really gave you a sticking mental image. That being said, I want to divert to a mayonnaise-based sauce that does just that.Sauce Gribiche is one of Escoffier's "mother sauce" variants, and a deliciously tangy, zesty sauce for serving with charcuterie, cold fish, or just plain boiled meat. What makes Sauce Gribiche especially unique is that instead of making a mayonnaise with raw eggs, you use hard boiled yolks to thicken the sauce. The crumbly, slightly pasty egg yolks act as a thickener to bind together the oil and vinegar into a loose, creamy base. Then the sliced egg whites are added with tarragon, cornichons, and capers.

Making it reminds me of adding a teaspoon of mustard to a vinaigrette, and how just a bit of mustard can turn the whole thing into a thick, cohesive sauce. Traditionally it's not such a greenish color, but I only had olive oil, not the neutral vegetable or grapeseed oil originally called for.Something like a highfalutin tartar sauce, I especially like this with pates, as the sharp, tangy sauce has enough bite to liven up the rich and heavy taste of the pate. Here it's with my beef-liver pate, seasoned with caramelized onions and uncured slices of pork belly.