Suprême sauce is one of the classic "small sauces" of French cuisine

French cuisine

French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...

, that is, one made by combining a basic or mother sauce (white) with extra ingredients.

Recipes

Traditionally, this sauce is made from a velouté sauce (a roux sauce made with a meat stock - in the case of suprême, a chicken stock is usually preferred), reduced with heavy cream

Cream

Cream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...

 or crème fraîche

Crème fraîche

Crème fraîche is a soured cream containing about 28% butterfat and with a pH of around 4.5. It is soured with bacterial culture, but is less sour than sour cream. It has a comparatively high viscosity and a higher fat content....

, and then strained through a fine sieve. This is the recipe as used in Larousse Gastronomique

Larousse Gastronomique

Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia of gastronomy. The majority of the book is about French cuisine, and contains recipes for French dishes and cooking techniques...

, a seminal work of French haute cuisine

Haute cuisine

Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...

, first published in 1938.

A light squeeze of lemon juice is commonly added. In many cases, chefs also choose to add finely-chopped and lightly sautéed mushrooms to the dish, although this was not specifically mentioned in Larousse Gastronomique or by Escoffier, the "Emperor of the World's Kitchens", who was an arbiter of classic French cuisine.

It is possible to make a similar sauce to pass for sauce suprême by taking béchamel sauce

Béchamel sauce

Béchamel sauce , also known as white sauce, is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine and is used in many recipes of Italian cuisine, for example lasagne. It is used as the base for other sauces . It is traditionally made by whisking scalded milk gradually into a white roux...

 (a classic white mother sauce made with butter, flour and milk), with a poultry

Poultry

Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

 stock

Stock (food)

Stock is a flavoured water preparation. It forms the basis of many dishes, particularly soups and sauces.- Preparation :Stock is made by simmering various ingredients in water, including some or all of the following...

 (effectively a shortcut to making a velouté by combining the roux and stock elements) and butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

.

Mrs Waters' The Cook's Decameron

The Cook's Decameron

The Cook's Decameron: A Study In Taste, Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes is a cookbook by Mrs. W. G. Waters that is now in the public domain. It contains over two hundred recipes for Italian dishes.-External links:**...

 suggests the following recipe: the sauce is made by placing three-quarters of a pint

Pint

The pint is a unit of volume or capacity that was once used across much of Europe with values varying from state to state from less than half a litre to over one litre. Within continental Europe, the pint was replaced with the metric system during the nineteenth century...

 of white sauce into a saucepan, and when it is nearly boiling, adding half a cup

Cup (unit)

The cup is a customary unit of measurement for volume, used in cooking to measure liquids and bulk foods such as granulated sugar...

 of concentrated fowl stock. It should then be reduced until the sauce is quite thick, passed through a chinois strainer into a bain-marie

Bain-marie

A bain-marie is a French term for a piece of equipment used in science, industry, and cooking to heat materials gently and gradually to fixed temperatures, or to keep materials warm over a period of time.- Description :...

 and have added two tablespoon

Tablespoon

A tablespoon is a type of large spoon usually used for serving. A tablespoonful, the capacity of one tablespoon, is commonly used as a measure of volume in cooking...

s of cream.

The compilers are careful to note this is not the true recipe as stated by Escoffier.