SAUCES.
SAUCE ALLEMANDE.--Take a pint of butter sauce--(_see_ BUTTER SAUCE)--and
add to it four yolks of eggs. In order to do this you must beat up the
yolks separately in a basin and add the hot butter sauce gradually,
otherwise the yolks of eggs will curdle and the sauce will be spoilt. In
fact, it must be treated exactly like custard, and in warming up the sauce
it is often a good plan, if you have no _bain-marie_, to put the sauce in a
jug and place the jug in a saucepan of boiling water. The sauce should be
flavoured with a little essence of mushroom if possible. Essence of
mushroom can be made from the trimmings of mushrooms, but mushroom ketchup
must not be used on account of the colour. Essence of mushroom can be made
by placing the trimmings of mushrooms in a saucepan, stewing them gently,
and extracting the flavour. The large black mushrooms, however, are not
suited. In addition to this essence of mushroom, a little lemon
juice--allowing the juice of half a lemon to every pint, should be added to
the sauce, as well as a slight suspicion of nutmeg, a pint of sauce
requiring about a dozen grates of a nutmeg. A little cream is a great
improvement to this sauce, but is not absolutely necessary. The sauce
should be perfectly smooth. Should it therefore contain any lumps, which
is not unfrequently the case in butter sauce, pass the sauce through a
sieve with a wooden spoon and then put it by in a _bain-marie_, or warm it
up in a jug as directed.
ALMOND SAUCE.--This is suitable for puddings. The simplest way of making
it is to make, say half a pint of butter sauce, or, cheaper, thicken half a
pint of milk with a little corn-flour, sweeten it with white sugar, and
then add a few drops of essence of almonds. About a dozen drops will be
sufficient if the essence is strong, but essence of almonds varies greatly
in strength. The sauce can be coloured pink with a few drops of cochineal.
ALMOND SAUCE (CLEAR).--Thicken half a pint of water with a little
corn-flour, sweeten it with white sugar, add a dozen drops of essence of
almonds and a few drops of cochineal to colour it pink. The sauce is very
suitable to pour over custard puddings made in a basin or cup and turned
out on to a dish. It is also very cheap.
APPLE SAUCE.--Peel say a dozen apples; cut them into quarters; and be very
careful in removing all the core, as many a child is choked through
carelessness in this respect. Stew the apples in a little water till they
become a pulp, placing with them half a dozen cloves and half a dozen
strips of the yellow part only of the outside of the rind of a _fresh_
lemon of the size and thickness of the thumb-nail; sweeten with brown
sugar, that known as Porto Rico being the most economical. Add a small
piece of butter before serving.
ARROWROOT SAUCE.--Thicken half a pint of water with about a dessertspoonful
of arrowroot and sweeten it with white sugar. The sauce can be flavoured
by rubbing a few lumps of sugar on the outside of a lemon, or with a few
drops of essence of vanilla, or with the addition of a little sherry or
spirit, the best spirit being rum. This sauce can, of course, be coloured
pink with cochineal.
ARTICHOKE SAUCE.--Proceed exactly as if you were making artichoke soup,
only make the puree thicker by using less liquid. A simple artichoke sauce
can be made by boiling down a few Jerusalem artichokes to a pulp, rubbing
them through a wire sieve, and flavouring with pepper and salt.
ASPARAGUS SAUCE.--Boil a bundle of asparagus and rub all the green, tender
part through a wire sieve, till it is a thick pulp, flavour with a little
pepper and salt, add a small piece of butter, and a little spinach extract
(vegetable colouring sold in bottles) in order to give it a good colour.
BREAD SAUCE.--Take some dry crumb of bread, and rub through a wire sieve.
The simplest plan is to turn the wire sieve upside down on a large sheet of
paper. The bread must be stale, and stale pieces can be put by for this
purpose. Next take, say, a pint of milk, and let it boil; then throw in
the bread-crumbs and let them _boil_ in the milk. This is the secret of
good bread sauce. Add a dozen peppercorns, and place a whole onion in the
saucepan containing the bread and milk, and place the saucepan beside the
fire in order to allow the bread-crumbs to swell. It will be found that
though at starting the bread sauce was quite thin and milky, yet after a
time it becomes thick. Take out the onion, add a little piece of butter,
stir it up, and serve. A little cream is a great improvement, but is not
absolutely necessary. This sauce, though very simple, requires care: Many
persons will probably recollect having met with bread sauce which in
appearance resembled a poultice too much to be agreeable either to the
palate or the eye.
BUTTER SAUCE.--This is the most important of all the sauces with which we
have to deal. The great mistake made by the vast majority of women cooks
is that they will use milk. They thicken a pint of milk with a little
butter and flour, and then call it melted butter, and, as a rule, send to
table enough for twenty persons when only two or three are dining. As
butter sauce will be served with the majority of vegetables, we would call
the attention of vegetarians to the fact that, as a rule, ordinary
cookery-books take for granted that vegetables will be served with the
meat. When therefore vegetables are served separately, and are intended to
be eaten with bread as a course by themselves, some alteration must be made
in the method of serving them. Again, vegetarians should bear in mind
that, except in cases where poverty necessitates rigid economy, a certain
amount of butter may be considered almost a necessity, should the meal be
wished to be both wholesome and nourishing. Francatelli, who was
_chef-de-cuisine_ to the Earl of Chesterfield, and was also chief cook to
the Queen and _chef_ at the Reform Club, and afterwards manager of the
Freemasons' Tavern, in writing on this subject observes:--"Butter sauce,
or, as it is more absurdly called, melted butter, is the foundation of the
whole of the following sauces, and requires very great care in its
preparation. Though simple, it is nevertheless a very useful and agreeable
sauce when properly made. So far from this being usually the case, it is
too generally left to assistants to prepare, as an insignificant matter;
the result is therefore seldom satisfactory. When a large quantity of
butter sauce is required, put four ounces of fresh butter into a
middle-sized stew-pan, with some grated nutmeg and minionette pepper; to
these add four ounces of sifted flour, knead the whole well together, and
moisten with a pint of cold spring water; stir the sauce on the fire till
it boils, and after having kept it gently boiling for twenty minutes
(observing that it be not thicker than the consistency of common white
sauce), proceed to mix in one pound and a half of sweet fresh butter,
taking care to stir the sauce quickly the whole time of the operation.
Should it appear to turn oily, add now and then a spoonful of cold spring
water; finish with the juice of half a lemon, and salt to palate; then pass
the sauce through a tammy into a large _bain-marie_ for use."
We have quoted the recipe of the late M. Francatelli in full, as we believe
it is necessary to refer to some very great authority in order to knock out
the prejudice from the minds of many who think that they not only can
themselves cook, but teach others, but who are bound in the chains of
prejudice and tradition which, too often, in the most simple recipes, lead
them to follow in the footsteps of their grandmothers.
Real butter sauce can be made as follows, on a small scale:--Take a
claret-glass of water, and about a small teaspoonful of flour mixed with
rather more than the same quantity of butter, and mix this in the water
over the fire till it is of the consistency of very thin gruel. If it is
thicker than this, add a little more water. Now take any quantity of
butter, and gradually dissolve as much as you can in this thin gruel,
adding say half an ounce at a time, till the sauce becomes a rich oily
compound. After a time, if you add too much butter, the sauce will curdle
and turn oily, as described by Francatelli.
Of course, in everyday life it is not necessary to have the butter sauce so
rich, still it is simply ridiculous to thicken a pint of milk, or a pint of
water, with a little butter and flour, and then call it butter sauce or
melted butter. Suppose we have a large white cabbage, like those met with
in the West of England, and we are going to make a meal off it in
conjunction with plenty of bread. Suppose the cabbage is sufficiently
large for six persons, surely half a pound of butter is not an excessive
quantity to use in making butter sauce for the purpose. Yet prejudice is
such that if we use half a pound of butter for the butter sauce,
housekeepers consider it extravagant. On the other hand, if the butter
were placed on the table, and the six persons helped themselves, and ate
bread and butter with the cabbage and finished the half-pound, it would not
be considered extravagant. Of course, this is simply prejudice.
A simple way of making melted butter is as follows:--Take half a pint of
cold water, put it in a saucepan, and add sufficient white roux, or butter
and flour mixed, till it is of the consistency of thin gruel. Now
gradually dissolve in this, adding a little piece at a time, as much butter
as you can afford; add a suspicion of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt, and
a few drops of lemon-juice from a fresh lemon, if you have one in use.
BUTTER, MELTED, OR OILED BUTTER.--Melted butter, properly speaking, is
rarely met with in this country, but is a common everyday sauce on the
Continent. It is simply what it says. A piece of butter is placed in a
little sauce-boat and placed in the oven till the butter runs to oil, and
then sent to table with all kinds of fish with which in our present work we
have nothing to do; but it is also sent to table with all kinds of
vegetables, such as French artichokes, &c.; sometimes a spoonful of French
capers is added to the oiled butter.
BUTTER, BLACK, OR BEURRE NOIR.--Take two ounces of butter, and dissolve it
in a frying-pan, and let it frizzle till the butter turns a brown colour;
then add a tablespoonful of French vinegar, a teaspoonful of chopped
capers, a teaspoonful of Harvey's sauce, and a teaspoonful of mushroom
ketchup. Let it remain on the fire till the acidity of the vinegar is
removed by evaporation. This is a very delicious sauce, and can be served
with Jerusalem artichokes boiled whole, fried eggs, &c.
CAPER SAUCE.--Make some butter sauce, and to every half-pint of sauce add a
dessertspoonful of chopped French capers. If the sauce is liked sharp, add
some of the vinegar from the bottle of capers.
CARROT SAUCE.--Proceed exactly as in carrot soup, using less liquid.
CAULIFLOWER SAUCE.--Proceed exactly as in cauliflower soup, using less
liquid.
CELERY SAUCE.--Proceed exactly as in celery soup, only using less liquid.
The thicker this sauce is the better.
CHERRY SAUCE.--Take a quarter of a pound of dried cherries, and put them
into a small stew-pan, with a dessertspoonful of black currant jelly, a
small stick of cinnamon, with half a dozen cloves, and add rather less than
half a pint of water, and let the whole simmer gently for about ten
minutes, when you must take out the spices and send the rest to table.
N.B.--If wine is not objected to in cooking, it is a very good plan to add
claret instead of water.
CHESTNUT SAUCE.--Proceed as in making chestnut soup, using as little liquid
as possible, so as to make the sauce thick.
CINNAMON SAUCE.--The simplest way of making cinnamon sauce is to sweeten
some butter sauce with some white sugar, and then add a few drops of
essence of cinnamon. The sauce can be coloured pink with a little
cochineal. A little wine is an improvement. The sauce can also be made by
breaking up and boiling a stick of cinnamon in some water, and then using
the water to make some butter sauce.
COCOANUT SAUCE.--Grate the white, part of a cocoanut very finely, and boil
it till tender in a very small quantity of water; add about an equal
quantity of white sugar as there was cocoa-nut; mix in either the yolk of
an egg or a tablespoonful of cream. A little lemon juice is an
improvement.
CUCUMBER SAUCE.--Take two or three small cucumbers, peel them, slice them,
and place them in a dish with a little salt, which has the effect of
extracting the water. Now drain the pieces off and strain then in a cloth,
to extract as much moisture as possible. Put then in a frying-pan with a
little butter; fry them very gently, till they begin to turn colour, then
nib them through a wire sieve; moisten the pulp with a little butter sauce;
add a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg and vinegar to taste.
CURRANT SAUCE (RED).--Put a couple of tablespoonfuls of red currant jelly
into a small stew-pan, with half a dozen cloves, a small stick of cinnamon,
and the rind of an orange. Moisten with a little water, or still better, a
little claret, strain it off, and add the juice of the orange.
CURRANT SAUCE (BLACK).--Proceed exactly as in the above recipe,
substituting black currant jelly for red.
CURRY SAUCE.--Take six large onions, peel them, cut them up into small
pieces, and fry them in a frying-pan in about two ounces of butter. As
soon as the onions begin to change colour, take a small carrot and cut it
up into little piece; and a sour apple. When the onions, etc., are fried a
nice brown, add about a pint of vegetable stock or water and let the whole
simmer till the vegetables are quite tender, then add a tea-spoonful of
Captain White's curry paste and a dessertspoonful of curry powder; now rub
the whole through a wire sieve, and take care that all the vegetables go
through. It is rather troublesome, but will repay you, as good curry sauce
cannot be made without. The curry sauce should be sufficiently thick owing
to the vegetables being rubbed through the wire sieve. Should therefore
the onions be small, less water or stock had better be added. Curry sauce
could be thickened with a little brown roux, but it takes away from the
flavour of the curry. A few bay-leaves may be added to the sauce and
served up whole in whatever is curried. For instance, if we have a dish of
curried rice, half a dozen or more bay-leaves could be added to the sauce
and served up with the rice.
There are many varieties of curry. In India fresh mangoes take the part of
our sour apples. Some persons add grated cocoanut to curry, and it is well
worth a trial, although on the P. and O. boats the Indian curry-cook mixes
the curry fresh every day and uses cocoanut oil for the purpose. In some
parts of India it is customary to serve up whole chillies in the curry, but
this would be better adapted to a stomach suffering from the effects of
brandy-pawnee than to the simple taste of the vegetarian.
DUTCH SAUCE.--This is very similar to Allemande Sauce. Take half a pint of
good butter sauce, make it thoroughly hot, add two yolks of eggs, taking
care that they do not curdle, a little pepper and salt, a suspicion of
nutmeg, and about a tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar. Some persons
instead of using tarragon vinegar add a little lemon juice, say the half of
a fresh lemon to this quantity, and half a dozen fresh tarragon leaves,
blanched--that is, dipped for a few seconds in boiling water--and then
chopped very fine. The tarragon vinegar is much the simplest, as it is
very difficult to get fresh tarragon leaves unless one has a good garden or
lives near Covent Garden Market.
DUTCH SAUCE (GREEN).--Proceed exactly as above and colour the sauce a
bright green with a little spinach extract (vegetable colouring, sold in
bottles by all grocers).
EGG SAUCE.--Take half a dozen eggs, put them in a saucepan with sufficient
cold water to cover them. Put them on the fire and let them boil for ten
minutes after the water boils. Take them out and put them into cold water
and let them stand for ten minutes, when the shells can be removed; then
cut up the six hard-boiled eggs into little pieces, add sufficient butter
sauce to moisten them, make the whole hot, and serve.
N.B.--Inexperienced cooks often think that hard-boiled eggs are bad when
they are not, owing to their often having a tinge of green colour round the
outside of the yolk and to their emitting a peculiar smell when the shells
are first removed while hot All eggs contain a small quantity of
sulphuretted hydrogen.
FENNEL SAUCE.--Blanch and chop up sufficient fennel to colour half a pint
of butter sauce a bright green, add a little pepper, salt, and lemon juice,
and serve.
GERMAN SWEET SAUCE.--Take a quarter of a pound of dried cherries, a small
saltspoonful of powdered cinnamon, and a few strips of lemon peel, and put
them in a small saucepan with about a quarter of a pint of water, or still
better, claret, if wine is allowed, and let them simmer on the fire gently
for about half an hour; then rub the cherries through a wire sieve with the
liquor--(of course, the lemon peel and cloves will not rub through)--and
add this to a quarter of a pound of stewed prunes. This is a very popular
sauce abroad.
GINGER SAUCE.--The simplest way of making ginger sauce is to sweeten half a
pint of butter sauce and then add a few drops of essence of ginger. A
richer ginger sauce can be made by taking two or three tablespoonfuls of
preserved ginger and two or three tablespoonfuls of the syrup in which they
are preserved, rubbing this through a wire sieve, adding about an equal
quantity of butter sauce, making the whole hot in a saucepan.
GOOSEBERRY SAUCE.--Pick and then stew some green gooseberries, just
moistening the stewpan with a little water to prevent them burning. Rub
the whole through a hair sieve in order to avoid having any pips in the
sauce. Sweeten with a little Demerara sugar, as Porto Rico would be too
dark in colour. Colour the sauce a bright green with a little spinach
extract.
N.B.--It is a mistake to add cream to gooseberry sauce, which is distinct
altogether from gooseberry fool. In Germany, vinegar is added to this
sauce and it is served with meat.
HORSE-RADISH SAUCE.--Horse-radish sauce is made, properly speaking, by
mixing grated horse-radish with cream, vinegar, sugar, made mustard, and a
little pepper and salt. A very simple method of making this sauce is to
substitute tinned Swiss milk for the cream and sugar. It is equally nice,
more economical, and possesses this great advantage: a few tins of Swiss
milk can always be kept in the store cupboard, whereas there is
considerable difficulty, especially in all large towns, in obtaining cream
without giving twenty-four hours' notice, and the result even then is not
always satisfactory. Horse-radish sauce is very delicious, and its
thickness should be entirely dependent upon the amount of grated
horse-radish. Sticks of horse-radish vary so very much in size that we
will say, grate sufficient to fill a teacup, throw this into a sauce
tureen, mix a dessertspoonful of Swiss milk with a tablespoonful of vinegar
and about two tablespoonfuls of milk and a teaspoonful of made mustard, add
this to the horse-radish, and, if necessary, sufficient milk to make the
whole of the consistency of bread sauce. As the sauce is very hot, as a
rule it is best not to add any pepper, which can be easily added afterwards
by those who like it.
INDIAN PICKLE SAUCE.--Chop up two or three tablespoonfuls of Indian
pickles, place them in a frying-pan with a quarter of a pint of water, and
if the pickles are sour as well as hot, let them simmer some little time so
as to get rid of the vinegar by evaporation. Then thicken the whole with
some brown roux till the sauce is as thick as pea soup. The vinegar should
be got rid of as much as possible. This is a very appetising dish with
boiled rice and Parmesan cheese.
ITALIAN SAUCE.--This is an old-fashioned recipe taken from a book written
in French, and published more than fifty years ago. Put into a saucepan a
little parsley, a shallot, some mushrooms and truffles, chopped very
finely, with a piece of butter about the size of a walnut. Let all boil
gently for half an hour, add a spoonful of oil, and serve.
MAITRE D'HOTEL SAUCE.--Maitre d'hotel sauce is simply a lump of butter
mixed with some chopped parsley, a little pepper and salt, and lemon juice.
Hot sauce is often called Maitre d'hotel when chopped blanched parsley and
lemon juice is added to a little white sauce.
MANGO CHUTNEY SAUCE.--Take a couple of tablespoonfuls of Mango Chutney,
moisten it with two or three tablespoonfuls of butter sauce, rub the whole
through a wire sieve, and serve either hot or cold. Or the chutney can be
simply chopped up fine and added to the butter sauce without rubbing
through the wire sieve.
MAYONNAISE SAUCE.--This is the most delicious of all cold sauces. It is
composed entirely of raw yolk of egg and oil, flavoured with a dash of
vinegar. When made properly it should be of the consistency of butter in
summer time. Many women cooks labour under the delusion that it requires
the addition of cream. Mayonnaise sauce is made as follows:--Break an egg
and separate the yolk from the white, and place the yolk at the bottom of a
large basin. Next take a bottle of oil, which must be cool but bright; if
the oil is cloudy, as it often is in cold weather, you cannot make the
sauce. Nor can you if the oil has been kept in a warm place. Now proceed
to let the oil drop, drop by drop, on the yolk of egg, and with a silver
fork, or still better, a wooden one, beat the yolk of egg and oil quickly
together. Continue to drop the oil, taking care that only a few drops drop
at a time, especially at starting, and continue to beat the mixture lightly
and quickly. Gradually the yolk of egg and oil will begin to get thick,
first of all like custard. When this is the case a little more oil may be
added at a time, but never more than a teaspoonful. As more oil is added,
and the beating continues, the sauce gets thicker and thicker, till it is
nearly as thick as butter in summer time. When it arrives at this stage no
more oil should be added. A little tarragon vinegar may be added at the
finish, or a little lemon juice. This makes the sauce whiter in colour.
One yolk of egg will take a teacupful of oil. It is best to add pepper and
salt when the salad is mixed. Mayonnaise sauce is by far the best sauce
for lettuce salad. It will keep a day, but should be kept in a cool place,
and the basin should be covered over with a moist cloth.
MAYONNAISE SAUCE, GREEN.--Make some mayonnaise sauce as above, and colour
it with some spinach colouring (vegetable colouring, sold in bottles by all
grocers).
MINT SAUCE.--Take plenty of fresh mint leaves, as the secret of good mint
sauce is to have plenty of mint. Chop up sufficient mint to fill a teacup,
put this at the bottom of a sauce tureen, pour sufficient boiling water on
the mint to thoroughly moisten it, and add a tablespoonful of brown sugar,
which dissolves best when the water is hot. Press the mint with a
tablespoon to extract the flavour, let it stand till it is quite cold, and
then add three or four tablespoonfuls of malt vinegar, stir it up, and the
sauce is ready. The quantity of vinegar added is purely a matter of taste,
but a teaspoonful of chopped mint floating in half a pint of vinegar is no
more mint sauce than dipping a mutton chop in a quart of boiling water
would be soup in ordinary cookery.
MUSHROOM SAUCE, WHITE.--Mushroom sauce can be made from fresh mushrooms or
tinned mushrooms. When made from fresh they must be small button
mushrooms, and not those that are black underneath. They must be peeled,
cut small, and have a little lemon juice squeezed over them to prevent them
turning colour, or they had still better be thrown into lemon juice and
water. They must now be fried in a frying-pan with a small quantity of
butter till they are tender, and then added to a little thickened milk, or
still better, cream. When made from tinned mushrooms, simply chop up the
mushrooms, reserving the liquor, then add a little cream and thicken with a
little white roux. A little pepper and salt should be added in both cases.
Instead of using either milk or cream, you can use a small quantity of
sauce Allemande.
MUSHROOM SAUCE, BROWN.--Proceed exactly as above with regard to the
mushrooms, both fresh and tinned, only instead of adding milk, cream, or
Allemande sauce, add a little stock or water, and then thicken the sauce
with a little brown roux.
MUSHROOM SAUCE, PUREE.--Mushroom sauce, both white and brown, is sometimes
served as a puree. It is simply either of the above sauces rubbed through
a wire sieve.
MUSTARD SAUCE.--Make, say, half a pint of good butter sauce, add to this a
tablespoonful of French mustard and a tablespoonful of made English
mustard. Stir this into the sauce, make it hot, and serve.
N.B.--French mustard is sold ready-made in jars, and is flavoured with
tarragon, capers, ravigotte, &c.
ONION SAUCE.--Take half a dozen large onions, peel them and boil them in a
little salted water till they are tender. Then take them out and chop them
up fine, and put them in a stew-pan with a little milk. Thicken the sauce
with a little butter and flour, or white roux, and season with pepper and
salt. A very nice mild onion sauce is made by using Spanish onions.
ONION SAUCE, BROWN.--Slice up half a dozen good-sized onions; put them in a
frying-pan and fry them in a little butter till they begin to get brown,
but be careful not to burn them, and should there be a few black pieces in
the frying-pan, remove them; now chop up the onions, not too finely, and
put them in a saucepan with a very little stock or water, let them simmer
till they are tender, and then thicken the sauce with a little brown roux,
and flavour with pepper and salt.
ORANGE CREAM SAUCE FOR PUDDINGS.--Take a large ripe orange and rub a dozen
lumps of sugar on the outside of the rind and dissolve these in a small
quantity of butter sauce, and add the juice of the orange, strained. Now
add a little cream, or half a pint of milk that has been boiled separately,
in which case the sauce will want thickening with a little white roux.
Rubbing the sugar on the outside of the rind of the orange gives a very
strong orange flavour indeed--far more than the juice of almost any number
of oranges would produce, so care must be taken not to overdo it. This is
what French cooks call zest of orange.
PARSLEY SAUCE.--Blanch and chop up sufficient parsley to make a brimming
tablespoonful when chopped. Add this to half a pint of butter sauce, with
a little pepper, salt, and lemon juice. It is very important to blanch the
parsley, _i.e._, throw it into a little boiling water before chopping.
PINE-APPLE SAUCE.--Take a pine-apple, peel it, cut it up into little pieces
on a dish, taking care not to lose any of the juice, place it in a saucepan
with a very little water, just sufficient to cover the pine-apple; let it
simmer gently until it is tender, and then add sufficient white sugar to
make the liquid almost a syrup; a teaspoonful of corn-flour, made smooth in
a little cold water, can be added; but the sauce should be of the
consistency of syrup, and the corn-flour does away with the difficulty of
making it too sickly. The juice of half a lemon may be added, and is,
perhaps, an improvement.
PLUM SAUCE.--When made from ripe plums, take, say, a pound, and place them
in a stew-pan with a very little water and a quarter of a pound of sugar.
Take out the stones and crack them. Throw the kernels into boiling water
so that you can rub off the skin, and add them to the sauce after you have
rubbed the stewed plums through a wire sieve.
To make plum sauce from dried French plums proceed exactly as in making
Prune Sauce. (_See_ PRUNE SAUCE.)
POIVRADE SAUCE.--Take an onion, a very small head of celery, and a carrot,
and cut them into little pieces, and put them into a frying-pan with a
little butter, a saltspoonful of thyme, one or two dried bay-leaves, and
about a quarter of a grated nutmeg and two or three sprigs of parsley. Fry
these till they turn a light-brown colour, then add a little stock or
water, and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Let this boil in the frying-pan
for about half an hour, till the liquid is reduced in quantity. Thicken it
with a little brown roux, and rub it through a wire sieve, make it hot, and
serve. If wine is allowed, the addition of a little sherry is a great
improvement to this sauce.
PRUNE SAUCE.--Take a quarter of a pound of prunes, put them in a stew-pan
with just sufficient water to cover them, and let them stew. Put in one or
two strips of lemon-peel to stew with them, add a teaspoonful of brown
sugar, about sufficient powdered cinnamon to cover a shilling, and the
juice of half a lemon. When the prunes are quite tender take out the strip
of lemon-peel and stones, rub the whole through a wire sieve, and serve.
RADISH SAUCE.--Take a few bunches of radishes and grate them, and mix this
grated radish with a little oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. You can colour
the sauce red by adding a little beetroot, and make the sauce hot by adding
a little grated horse-radish. This cold sauce is exceedingly nice with
cheese. These _grated_ radishes are more digestible than radishes served
whole.
RASPBERRY SAUCE.--This sauce is simply stewed raspberries rubbed through a
wire sieve and sweetened. Some red-currant juice should be added to give
it a colour. It is very nice made hot and then added to one or two
beaten-up eggs and poured over any plain puddings, such as boiled rice, &c.
RATAFIA SAUCE.--Add a few drops of essence of ratafia to some sweetened
arrowroot or to some butter sauce. The sauce can be coloured pink with a
few drops of cochineal.
RAVIGOTTE SAUCE.--Put a tablespoonful each of Harvey's sauce, tarragon
vinegar, and chilli vinegar into a small saucepan, and let it boil till it
is reduced to almost one-half in quantity, in order to get rid of the
acidity. Now add about half a pint of butter sauce, and throw in a
tablespoonful of chopped blanched parsley.
ROBERT SAUCE.--Take a couple of onions, cut them up into small pieces, and
fry them with about an ounce of butter in a frying-pan. Drain off the
butter and add a couple of tablespoonfuls of vinegar to the frying-pan, and
let it simmer for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour so as to get rid of
the acidity of the vinegar. Now add a very little stock or water, stir it
tip, and thicken the sauce with a little brown roux. Add a dessertspoonful
of fresh mustard and a little pepper and salt.
SOUBISE SAUCE.--Sauce Soubise is simply white onion sauce, rubbed through a
wire sieve, and a little cream added. It is more delicate than ordinary
onion sauce, and is often served in France with roast pheasant. It owes
its name to a famous French general.
SORREL SAUCE.--Put about a quart of fresh green sorrel leaves (after being
thoroughly washed) into an enamelled saucepan, with a little fresh butter,
and let the sorrel stew till it is tender. Rub this through a wire sieve,
add a little powdered sugar and a little lemon juice; a little cream may be
added, but is not absolutely essential.
SWEET SAUCE.--Take half a pint of butter sauce, and sweeten it with a
little sugar. It can be flavoured by rubbing a little sugar on the outside
of a lemon, or with vanilla, essence of almonds, or any kind of sweet
essence. A little wine, brandy, or, still better, rum, is a great
improvement. Some persons add cream.
TARRAGON SAUCE.--Blanch a dozen tarragon leaves, chop them up, and stew
them in any kind of stock thickened with brown roux.
TARTAR SAUCE.--Take two or three tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise sauce, and
add to this a brimming teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley, as well as
a piece of onion or shallot about as big as the top of the thumb down to
the first joint, chopped very fine, and a brimming teaspoonful of French
mustard. Mix the whole well together.
N.B.--A teaspoonful of anchovy sauce would be a great improvement were
anchovy sauce allowed in vegetarian cookery.
TOMATO SAUCE.--The great secret of tomato sauce is to taste nothing but the
tomato. Take a dozen ripe tomatoes, cut off the stalks, and squeeze out
the pips, and put them in a stew-pan with a little butter, and let them
stew till they are tender, and then rub the whole through a wire sieve.
This, in our opinion, is the best tomato sauce that can be made, the only
seasoning being a little pepper and salt. This wholesome and delicious
sauce can, however, be spoilt in a variety of ways--by the addition of
mace, cloves, shallots, onions, thyme, &c. It can also be made very
unwholesome by the addition of a quantity of vinegar.
TRUFFLE SAUCE.--This sauce is very expensive if made from whole fresh
truffles, but can be made more cheaply if you can obtain some truffle chips
or parings. These must be stewed in a little stock, thickened with brown
roux, and then rubbed through a wire sieve, a little sherry being a great
improvement if wine is allowed.
VANILLA SAUCE.--Add some essence of vanilla to some sweetened butter sauce.
WHITE SAUCE.--White sauce is sometimes required for vegetables and
sometimes for puddings. In the former case some good-flavoured, uncoloured
stock must be thickened with white roux, and then have sufficient cream
added to it to make the sauce a pure white.
When white sauce is wanted for puddings, sufficient butter sauce must be
sweetened, and very slightly flavoured with nutmeg or almond, and then an
equal quantity of cream added to it to make it a pure white. White sauce
should not have with it any strong predominant flavour.