Traditional British Egg Sauce – The Forgotten Classic for Fish & Ham

And what this is about, the egg sauce. So there we have it, traditional, traditional egg sauce. Look at that. Hi everyone, welcome to Backyard Chef. I'm Rick. Today we're making the old fashioned egg sauce. Old English recipe from way back in the old English kitchens. Traditionally served with cod, haddock, ham, asparagus, or I'm gonna call it asparagus so everybody can moan. But there you go, we're making the traditional egg sauce. It's simple to make, boil some eggs. Doesn't matter how long you boil them. Boil them for 20 minutes if you so wish. You want hard boiled eggs and we want to chop them. Nice and straightforward, we want chopped egg in our sauce. Now you can chop it as big or as small as you like. It doesn't matter. Now what is an egg sauce? Well, the egg sauce is basically a Batchemal sauce. Basically a Batchemal with egg, a little splash of mustard, and some chopped parsley. Also a little bit of white pepper and a little bit of salt. It is so easy to come together and it's one of those fantastic sauces that, you know, basically is not made anymore, you know? People don't make a white sauce. They don't want to put egg in a sauce. They want egg in mayonnaise and make an eggy mayonnaise sandwich or something, you know? So these old traditional sauces are fantastic. Worth knowing. Okay, we've chopped up some egg. Let's get on and make a sauce and then we'll put the sauce to warm whilst we cook some asparagus, or asparagus, and some packet ham. Come on. Okay, bring in a pan. So we're going to make a straightforward roux, okay? In there with some butter. Keep the butter out. We're going to cook the asparagus, or asparagus, in butter. Flame on, let it warm up. Whoa, there you go. Now, I wouldn't normally cook in this pan. I would cook in a sauce pan, but we want to see what's going on, don't we? So we're cooking in this one. The only problem with these, they heat up a little bit too much sometimes. So we have to be a bit careful. So this sauce is real old school from way back when, when they used to put it and serve it with posh cod and haddock and things like that, you know? You don't see it anymore. We want a couple of tablespoons of flour in there, and we want to start cooking out the flour. Don't rush. Don't panic. If you've got a ridiculously hot pan like me, turn it down, was the cry. Turn it down. There we go. In there with some white pepper. A little bit of salt. A little cooking. That should bloom out your pepper in there lovely. In with some Coleman's mustard. That won't go in there, look. About half a teaspoon, something like that. Mm-mm. Stir it through. Chuck in your milk. No point doing a little bit at a time, just chuck it all in. Just give it a nice gentle stir as it starts to thicken up and catch on the bottom of this pan. Nice and steady. There you go. Now, the thing is with this, if it goes too thick, you add a splash of milk. It's as simple as that. So we're going to put a little splash of milk in. Let's have a look at that. Oh yeah, that'll be fine. Just stir it back through to warm it up. There you go. That is a beautiful white sauce. Okay, in with your egg. Now, it's a fold-in job, not stir it all crazily. And it's a warm through. That's all. Flame really, really low. Okay, that is it. That is an egg sauce. Now, if you worked in a restaurant and you were a posh chef, you would stir in a little splash of cream before serving and a little knob of butter. You would stir that through. Let it have its creaminess and butteriness in there. You would chuck in your parsley, and we are ready to go. That is it. It's as easy as that. You can see how these sauces all came together. You know, your parsley sauce, you've got a batch of them out. You've got whatever, you know, they're all white sauces. You can see how one evolved from one to another, to another, to another. That's what makes cooking fabulous, you know, and all different countries with different recipes all use the same basic type sauces. You know, Batchamel, Mornay, mustard sauce, egg sauce, parsley sauce, all the same. Right, I'm gonna put this on behind me to keep warm. I wanna cook this ham at the front and the asparagus. Okay, I'm using packet ham, okay, for this demonstration. You can use big, thick cut ham, whatever. Pan on, water on, bring to the boil. This ham is packet ham. This ham is as slimy as it comes. Blanch it off in there without boiling water. It will take that horrible sliminess off there and cook the ham just a little bit. You don't have to do it this way, up to you. It's only a minute, nothing more. We just wanna take that, look at the state of this water. Look at the water there. Take that horrible slime off this ham. And now we know that this is packet ham, but it now has this cooked ham texture and feel and look. Okay, so the ham is ready. Let's get that out of there. Look at that in there. Now, that is all on that ham, you know? Do you want to eat that ham with all that on? No, pan on, in there, butter, flame down. And I've got the wimpiest-looking asparagus that you will ever see in that pan. Come on, that asparagus is ridiculous. Little bit of salt, you can do sea salt if you want. Entirely up to you. Swap out the pepper for black pepper. Okay, job done, let's get served up. Just bring your sauce back in a second. Make sure it's warm enough, we've been on that back ring. Beautiful. Flame off, little squirt of lemon juice. No, it's only a little squirt. Stir through, serve up, there you go. Come on on there with some of that ham. I mean, come on, this is just packet ham, but it looks good enough. On there, little bit of parmesan on there, optional. And what this is about, the egg sauce. Little shake of white pepper for me on there. And we're good to go, look at that. So there you go, our English egg sauce served with some ham and some asparagus, or asparagus, if you want to call it that way. So there we have it, traditional, traditional egg sauce. Look at that. What's it taste like? Tastes like egg in a Batchamel sauce with a hint of mustard in there. To me, I want more salt, you might not. It's okay. And then we've got our asparagus. Oh, lovely, delicious, nice little bit of Parma on there. Little bit of ham, couple it all together. Mm, delicious, absolutely delicious. Now, me being me, little bit of Coleman's on there. And we're well on our way. So there you go, traditional egg sauce made. That is simple. These old recipes, you know, I understand why people don't make them anymore. An egg sauce is not really pow with flavour. It's subtle, but it goes really well with cod, haddock, ham, anything like that. There you go, traditional egg sauce. If you like what we're doing, share with your friends, tell them how easy it is to make that. 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