IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, TASTY SAUCES came to be equated with gourmet cooking. More recently, cooking has moved away somewhat from the roux-, cream-, and cheese-based sauces of earlier times toward simpler, often lighter sauces and salsas. But sauces have always been a part of everyday home cooking, a means of attaining variety with limited choices of meats or vegetables.
8 ounces cream cheese
¾ cup evaporated milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 ounces blue cheese
Bring cream cheese to room temperature. Cream in a saucepan until soft and smooth. Gradually beat in evaporated milk until blended. Add salt and mix. Crumble in blue cheese. Place over very low heat until hot and bubbly, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Serve over asparagus, broccoli, green beans, or baked potato.
Submitted by Mathilda Jadin, Green Bay.
½ tablespoon flour
½ tablespoon butter, melted
2 tablespoons grated horseradish
Soup broth
1 pint sour cream
Salt and sugar to taste
3 or 4 drops lemon juice
2 egg yolks, well-beaten (optional)
Combine flour and butter and saute briefly. Add horseradish and saute until well blended. Add broth to moisten well; stir in sour cream, salt, sugar, and lemon juice. Heat just to boiling. If a rich sauce is desired, mix several tablespoons of hot mixture into egg yolks, then stir into sauce.
Serve with boiled beef or fish.
Submitted by Mrs. Catherine Ellingboe, Milwaukee.
1 horseradish root
1 apple
Sugar, salt, and vinegar to taste
Grate horseradish and apple. Combine and season with sugar, salt, and vinegar. Serve with boiled beef.
Submitted by Blanche Mendl, Deerbrook.
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon prepared mustard or 1 tablespoon vinegar mixed with 1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and nutmeg to taste
Boiling water
Combine butter, flour, mustard, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Stir in boiling water until sauce is desired consistency.
Serve with beef heart or tongue or on other meats as desired.
Submitted by Mrs. Ronald Daggett, Madison.
Onions
Butter
Flour
Stock or water
Salt and pepper to taste
Dice onions and saute in butter until tender. Add several tablespoons flour and saute until mixture is a golden brown. Add stock and simmer 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Sauce should be thick.
Serve warm with meat, or as a vegetable.
Bread crumbs
Fat
Flour
Homemade sour red wine
Water
Sugar
Brown crumbs in fat very slowly. Add a little flour and continue sauteing until mixture is golden brown, stirring constantly. Add wine diluted with a little water and sugar to sweeten. Simmer slowly until like a thick applesauce. Very good with poultry or smoked meats.
Mrs. Anne Shoberg, Milwaukee, contributed the recipes for onion sauce and wine sauce, above, which she learned to make by watching her mother, who had no written recipes. For the wine sauce, she noted, “I would guess the proportions to be 1 cup bread crumbs, 3 tablespoons flour, 3 to 4 tablespoons fat, 3 cups wine (possibly more), water and sugar to taste.”
About 2 tablespoons sugar
Water
Put 2 or more tablespoons sugar in a frying pan and brown until it smokes. Add water gradually until mixture is thin.
Add to the gravy for coloring and flavor. In larger amounts, may be added to cold packed beef or venison to give flavor and color.
Submitted by Dagmar P. Noel, Waukesha, who noted that “before gravy coloring was on the market, my mother made her own.”
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons butter
1 can (1 pound, 12 ounces) tomatoes
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
½ cup water or stock
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon crushed rosemary
½ teaspoon crushed sweet basil
½ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste
Saute onion and garlic in butter until limp. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, water, sugar, rosemary, basil, salt, and pepper. Simmer 1 hour.
Submitted by Mrs. Julia Vanderschaegen, Iron Belt, who suggested pouring this sauce over fried chicken and baking at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Loretta Falci prepares tomato paste on the porch of her home in Madison’s Greenbush neighborhood, circa 1941.
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Lard obtained at butchering time was sometimes used to make a spread.
Pork lard
4 large or 6 medium apples
1 cup water
1 bay leaf, crumbled
3 whole allspice
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped onion (optional)
Fry out lard, but not too dry. Measure out 4 cups including the cracklings.
Peel and cut up apples. Combine with water, bay leaf, allspice, sugar, salt, and onion if desired. Simmer until apples are cooked. Stir in rendered lard and cracklings and continue cooking, stirring until very thick. Cool and spread on bread.
Submitted by Mrs. Darwin Kamke, Seymour.
Sun-loving eggplant has been cultivated in the Americas for centuries; in Wisconsin, as elsewhere in the United States, it gained widespread popularity only in recent decades, as diners grew savvy about international flavors and ingredients. The state’s Middle Eastern immigrants and other eggplant lovers especially enjoy this spread, rich with olive oil and tahini (sesame seed paste) and typically eaten with pita bread.
2 small eggplants (about 1 pound total)
½ cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional oil as desired
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon salt or more to taste
Juice of 1 small lemon
Pita bread, cut into sixths
Prick eggplants in several places and roast over hot coals, turning often, 15 to 20 minutes or until soft. Slit and let cool briefly, then peel off charred skin and mash flesh with tahini, 2 tablespoons olive oil, parsley, garlic, salt, and lemon juice. Thin with water as desired. Drizzle with additional olive oil if you’d like. Serve with pita bread for dipping. Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Traditional recipe adapted by Terese Allen.
In the twenty-first century, cooking from scratch doesn’t have to mean long hours in the kitchen, nor does a family meal require a large portion of meat at the center of the plate. These days, the combination of garden-fresh vegetables, grains, and easy-going preparation can bring a healthy, delicious dinner to the table in short order.
This no-cook sauce features Sun Gold tomatoes—which grew wildly popular at local farmers’ markets during the 1990s and are now found in many a backyard plot—and feta cheese, made by Wisconsin’s artisanal cheesemakers with cow’s, goat’s, or sheep’s milk. Tossed with fresh herbs, the sauce is outstanding with couscous, pasta, or rice.
1 pint Sun Gold cherry tomatoes
½ heaping cup crumbled feta cheese
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill or basil
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, or more to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Slice the tomatoes in half and combine with remaining ingredients. Let stand 10 to 20 minutes, tossing occasionally, before serving. Makes 2 to 4 servings.
Adapted by Terese Allen from a recipe in From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce, third edition, published by Jones Books, 2004.
Traditional Wisconsin foods were demonstrated to crowds at the Wisconsin Folklife Festival, held during the state’s sesquicentennial year (1998) in Madison and at the Smithsonian Institute’s national festival in Washington, D.C. In conjunction with the festival, the Wisconsin Arts Board published a cookbook called Home Cooked Culture: Wisconsin through Recipes, featuring dishes garnered from festival participants.
Salsa may not sound like a Wisconsin tradition, but the fact that the spicy mix of chopped tomatoes, hot peppers, and other ingredients was included in a cookbook about the state’s foodways is proof of how much a part of American food culture salsa has become. JoAnn Blohowiak, who contributed this recipe to the collection, said, “I made this recipe up by trying different salsas and creating one specifically to my taste. My friend, who is Puerto Rican, says ‘it’s the best salsa in the world—made by a white girl from Wisconsin!’”
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil or canola oil
½ small can tomato paste
Juice of 1 medium lemon
Juice of ½ medium lime
6 Roma tomatoes, diced
⅓ cup chopped fresh cilantro
⅓ large red onion, chopped
1 cup cooked black turtle beans or kidney beans
1 green chili (to taste for hotness), chopped very fine
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 large ripe avocado, chopped into big chunks
⅛ teaspoon cayenne (to taste for hotness)
1 cup fresh corn kernels (optional)
Chop garlic finely. Use a mortar and pestle to grind it with the salt. Add oil and mix. Place tomato paste and juices in a large serving bowl. Add garlic mixture and stir. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Serve with organic white, blue, or yellow corn chips.
This recipe was created by JoAnn Blohowiak of Green Bay and originally appeared in Home Cooked Culture: Wisconsin through Recipes, published by the University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Blohowiak advised: “The real secret [to great salsa] is to use fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables ... [and] listen to Latino or Central American music while preparing [it].”