Espagnole sauce, pronounced ‘ehs-pah-NYOHL’ , meaning Spanish sauce..

Espagnole is one of Auguste Escoffier’s five mother sauces.

As a mother sauce, it serves as the starting point for many classic sauce descendants.

The basic method of making Espagnole is to prepare a very dark brown roux, to which bone broth is added.

The classic recipe calls for veal broth.

The liquid is gradually reduced and a tomato paste or puree are added towards the end of the process before being further reduced.

There is a story behind why the most important basic brown sauce in French cuisine is called sauce Espagnole, or Spanish sauce.

The story goes like this;

Anne of Austria, the bride of Louis XIII insisted on improving the brown sauce of France. She went ahead doing so with the addition of Spanish tomatoes.

The resulting sauce became famous for its robust flavor and featured at the couples wedding feast in 1615.

Today, 405 years later, the Espagnole is still called the ‘ehs-pah-NYOHL’  in honor of the Spanish tomato.