It’s a Cinch with Sauces
How many little girls today read Louisa M. Alcott, I wonder? Compared to comic books and Western movies her old-fashioned stories must seem lacking in action, yet once the four March sisters were as real to me as Orphan Annie to the present generation.
What I felt was “offensively” good health—I still can’t even look delicate—kept me from following poor Beth’s example and seeking an early grave. The less spiritual ambition of owning a toy cookstove that really worked, such as Daisy had in Little Men, was more easily achieved and from the morning I saw it under the Christmas tree I’ve never regretted the choice I was forced to make. Just as well, too, for health and a cookstove still continue to keep me from any higher plane.
My toy stove was a square tin box, had a smoke pipe and two cooking holes and was completely outfitted with doll-size pots and pans. The heat came from a metal tube out of which sprouted two candle-shaped objects stuffed with cotton, and when alcohol was poured on and a match applied, a hot but, as I learnt, completely unadjustable flame was the result.
My mother, who was no cook but, like every good housewife in those days, knew “how things should be done,” appeared in the nursery as soon as my new toy was set up, announcing that she was going to teach me one worthwhile thing before I started to mess. This turned out to be white sauce and worthwhile it is—and how few cooks still understand its manufacture, as witness the paste that so often masquerades under that name in restaurants or, even sadder, on the home table. Her recipe for WHITE SAUCE remains the right and only one. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter over a medium flame and stir in 2 tablespoons of flour. When things start to bubble take the pan from the fire and stir in 1 cup of milk. Do this very slowly; let the flour absorb the liquid and not a lump remain. Put the pan back over the heat and just as slowly add 1 cup more of milk, never ceasing the constant stirring. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and ⅛ teaspoon of black pepper, and keep it over a lower heat for at least 10 min-utes longer, stirring occasionally. If you must neglect it after the last milk goes in, put the sauce into the top of a double boiler to finish cooking over hot water. This makes a medium thin sauce which can be thickened by a tablespoon more of flour and butter added before the milk, or by adding flour diluted to a thin paste with milk after the sauce first starts to thicken. But beware of a floury taste in the finished sauce and always cook it thoroughly.
I regret to say that the toy stove was wrenched from me shortly after this lesson, for after one afternoon alone in its company I was discovered trying to camouflage a badly singed pair of eyebrows with a lead pencil and preferred not to discuss a suspicious scorch on the nursery ceiling. Mother’s recipe was the first I taught my daughter after the young man appeared who turned her thoughts to things culinary, but behind locked lips has lain till this day how I acquired intimate knowledge of the dire results that follow pouring alcohol on a lighted wick.
The method of making this foundation sauce should be practiced patiently until you are sure of your technique for, though good alone, it is the base of numerous others. Below are just a few suggestions.
To make CHEESE SAUCE leave the white sauce in the double boiler and stir in ½ cup or more of grated sharp cheese until the cheese has melted and the desired flavor is obtained.
IMITATION SAUCE NEWBURG. Dilute 2 beaten egg yolks with ½ cup of milk, pour 2 cups of hot white sauce over them, and return to the double boiler and stir for 5 minutes. Before serving add 1 tablespoon of sherry.
MUSHROOM SAUCE. Sauté 1 cup of chopped mushrooms in the butter and proceed as in plain white sauce.
EGG SAUCE. Add 2 chopped hard-boiled eggs to the white sauce just before serving.
CELERY SAUCE calls for 1 cup of the sieved cooked vegetable, 1 cup of the water in which it was cooked, and 1 cup of milk. Proceed as in white sauce.
Make ONION SAUCE the same way.
CAPER SAUCE NUMBER 1 as on page 78.
CAPER SAUCE NUMBER 2. Add ½ cup of capers to white sauce.
CAPER SAUCE NUMBER 3. Boil 2½ cups of chicken broth (made with bouillon cubes if necessary) until reduced to 2 cups. Melt 2 tablespoons each of flour and butter as in white sauce. Add broth slowly and 3 tablespoons each of capers and their liquor. Cook until thickened and before serving stir in 2 tablespoons of sour cream. Any caper sauce is good on fish.
CREOLE SAUCE. Soften ½ cup of chopped peeled onion, ½ cup of chopped green pepper, and half a chopped garlic clove in 2 tablespoons of butter. Add 3½ cups of peeled chopped or canned tomatoes. Simmer ½ hour. Thicken by rubbing 2 tablespoons of flour into 2 tablespoons of butter. Dilute this with ½ cup of the sauce and return to the sauce, stirring until well mixed and simmering 10 minutes longer. Watery tomatoes may need a little more thickening. This sauce is fine on cooked shrimps, fish, or meat, disguises leftovers, and will even make boiled tripe taste less like bath towels.
REAL SAUCE NEWBURG. Scald 2 cups of thin cream in the top of a double boiler. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs until light with 1 teaspoon of salt and a few grains of cayenne. Slowly stir into them the scalded cream. Cook in the boiler over a low heat until just thick and before serving add 2 tablespoons of sherry. This can have in it ½ cup of sautéed chopped mushrooms and the same amount of pimento or sautéed green peppers, and is perhaps the most difficult sauce to make. Take it from over the hot water as soon as thickened, add the cooked lobster, shrimps, scallops or what have you, cut in large pieces, and return over the hot water until well heated through but not a minute longer. It must never be boiled.
Preparing really good GRAVY takes just as much patience and practice as white sauce. Remove the cooked meat from its roasting pan and keep it warm. Leave about 2 tablespoons of fat in the pan and place it over a medium heat. Stir in 1½ tablespoons of flour and while doing so scrape up every bit of the meaty residue from the bottom of the pan. Slowly stir in 2 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt and ⅛ teaspoon of pepper. Let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. This is another foundation recipe and is fun to experiment with. Change its flavor with a little chopped onion or mushrooms, and try out tomato juice or red wine and meat sauces such as Worcestershire in it, too. Instead of using plain water experiment with canned consommé, diluted ½ with water. This makes a very flavorful gravy, and see what a delightful difference the addition of a few tablespoons of sour cream makes.
RED WINE GRAVY. Soften 1 tablespoon of chopped onion or, better, chives, in 2 tablespoons of butter. Blend in 1½ tablespoons of flour, then stir in, slowly, 1 cup of red wine and 1 cup of canned consommé, or stock. Add 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley, stir and simmer for 10 minutes. This is good with any leftover red meat.
WHITE WINE GRAVY is made the same way with ½ white wine and ½ chicken broth for the liquid, and goes with cooked chicken, veal, or pork. Either wine gravy takes to a few chopped celery leaves or a grating of raw carrot; and 1 teaspoon of dry or French mustard added before the final simmering makes it just right for smoked ham or tongue.
SWEET SOUR SAUCE is either red or white wine gravy (above) with 1 tablespoon of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of raisins, and 1 teaspoon of sugar added, and simmered for a few minutes before serving over the meat of your choice.
The HORSERADISH SAUCE that is so necessary on boiled or roast beef is simply 2 cups of thick sour cream mixed with bottled horseradish to taste.
LEMON BUTTER belongs with simpler sauces, too, for its ingredients are those in its title: 2 tablespoons or more of strained lemon juice added to ½ cup of melted butter. This goes well on green vegetables and with the addition of a little minced parsley or chives is fine on broiled, baked or fried fish.
Perhaps because its complicated directions in her kitchen cookbook were such a test of temperament as well as of culinary ability, Mother always demanded a knowledge of hollandaise sauce, before she engaged a new cook. My own family loves the sauce, too, but as my cooks needed most the easygoing nature that allowed them to reset the table for unexpected guests and then wait placidly while we downed an extra unhurried cocktail, I devised a recipe for hollandaise that had the same traits as its cooks and was as near foolproof as possible. When you master its simple directions, it will appear frequently on your table. So, if you can buy a small double boiler—one that an egg beater will just fit into without banging the sides—for its making, then without a worry learn the answer to Mother’s $64-question.
Dependable HOLLANDAISE SAUCE. Melt ¾ to 1 cup of butter in the top of a double boiler. Add 2 tablespoons of strained lemon juice. Beat 3 egg yolks light with ½ teaspoon of salt and a few grains of cayenne. Slowly beat into them the melted butter and juice. Be sure the hot water does not touch the bottom of the inset, then return the eggs and butter to the boiler, add 3 tablespoons of hot water and beat constantly over a low heat until the sauce just starts to thicken. Judge this crucial stage by the slight creases that will appear in its erstwhile youthful countenance, and when reached, remove the sauce from over the hot water immediately, for it ’s done. You, too, are having that extra cocktail, or the head of the house has decided a scrub-up and fresh shirt are what he needs just as dinner is announced? The sauce will keep perfectly, smooth and uncurdled, although perhaps not quite so light, for 15 or 20 minutes. Fill the bottom of the double boiler with lukewarm water and place the sauce, covered, over it. Console yourself with the remembrance that even in the best hotels, hollandaise is never served steaming and concentrate on the simpler task of keeping really hot what the sauce is to go on.
BÉARNAISE SAUCE uses 3 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar instead of the lemon juice, and is made and kept hot just as hollandaise.
Old cookbooks recommend olive oil as a base for both these sauces instead of butter. It is quite as good, and cooking oil is also acceptable in a pinch. But never, never experiment here with vegetable shortening. Desperation drove me to this once, but like the blaze in the nursery, don’t let’s discuss it.
