Chef Thomas Keller's Sauce Vierge Recipe

Sauce vierge (which translates to “virgin sauce”) is technically a vinaigrette, and is elegant enough to deserve its name. It was created and popularized by the great French chef Michel Guérard, and is a famous example of his cuisine minceur, a lighter spin on traditional nouvelle cuisine. Guérard began developing cuisine minceur in the early 1970s at a spa and resort that he and his wife ran in Eugénie-les-Bains, about 500 miles outside of Paris. In keeping with the health-conscious ethos of the property’s ethos, Guérard’s food was characteristized by bright, vivid flavors that drew on far less butter, cream, and other fats than many French dishes of the past. A pioneering figure, Guérard was also part of a vanguard of talented French chefs, led by Paul Bocuse, that included Roger Vergé, Alain Chapel, Raymond Oliver, among others.