IN making a good sauce but little merit can be claimed when the housekeeper or cook has plenty of good and proper materials on hand; but it is when a fine flavor has been produced from an inadequate supply that praise is justly due; as, for instance, giving a rich flavor of meat to a mess of potatoes or some other plain dish when no meat has been employed. But to do this it is necessary to know the qualities of the various vegetables, and how these may be made to resemble the juice of animal food. The vegetable products of which by far the most can be made by a skillful housekeeper are onions, mushrooms and carrots, which may be dressed so exquisitely as hardly to be distinguished from the gravy of beef.
Gravies should always be well adapted in flavor to the dishes they are to accompany. For some, a high degree of savor is desirable, but for delicate white meats this should be avoided, and a soft, smooth sauce of refined flavor be used. The bones of undressed meats will supply almost as good gravy stock as the meat itself, if well boiled down. Vermicelli or rasped cocoa-nut, lightly and very gently browned in a small quantity of butter, will both thicken and enrich gravies, if about an ounce of either of them to the pint of gravy be stewed gently in it half an hour to an hour, and then strained out. Too much thickening should be avoided. Before sending gravies to table see that they are all well skimmed; no particle of fat should ever be perceptible upon them.
CHOP twenty-four anchovies, bones and all, ten shalots (a species of small onion or garlic), a handful of scraped horse-radish, four blades of mace, one quart of white wine, one pint of anchovy liquor, one pint of claret, twelve cloves and twelve peppercorns; boil them together until reduced to a quart; strain and bottle for use. Two spoonfuls will be sufficient for a pound of butter.
WASH a half pint of shrimps clean, put them into salted boiling water; when cold, cut off the heads and peel off the shells. Then place them in a stew-pan with a spoonful of anchovy liquor, and thicken some good drawn butter with the shrimps; boil up the whole five minutes, and squeeze in half a lemon. Shrimp sauce is eaten with salmon and other fine fish.
SCALD a pint of oysters and strain them through a sieve; then wash some more in cold water, and take off their beards; put them in a stew-pan and pour the liquor over them; then add half a lemon, two blades of mace, and thicken it with good butter rolled in flour. Put in some more butter, boil it till it is melted; take out the mace and lemon, and squeeze the lemon-juice into the sauce; boil it, and stir it all the time. Put into a boat and simmer. For fish, add a large spoonful of anchovy liquor.
If your oysters are salt, and you can get no others, boil a pint of milk instead of the oyster liquor, seasoning with powdered nutmeg and mace, and enriching it with fresh butter dredged with flour.
TAKE two large spoonfuls of capers and a little vinegar, stir them in a half pint of melted butter. This sauce is for boiled mutton. If you have no capers, pickled cucumbers chopped fine, or pickled radish pods or nasturtions, may be stirred in the butter as a substitute.
BOIL four eggs a quarter of an hour; dip them in cold water to prevent them looking blue; peel off the shell, chop all the yolks and the whites of two; stir them in melted butter. Serve with boiled fish or poultry.
WASH a bundle of parsley in cold water. Then boil it six or seven minutes in salt water, drain, cut the leaves from the stalks, and chop them fine. Have ready some melted butter and stir in the parsley. Allow two small tablespoonfuls of leaves to half pint of butter. Serve with boiled fowls, rock fish, sea bass, and other boiled fresh fish. Also with knuckle of veal and calf’s head boiled plain.
PARE, core and slice some nice, juicy apples that are not too sweet; put them in a stew-pan with some lemon-peel, grated, and water enough to keep them from burning. Stew them till soft and tender, mash them to a paste, and sweeten well with brown sugar, adding a little butter and some nutmeg. To be eaten with roast pork, roast goose or roast duck.
TAKE a quart of dried peaches (the richest are those with the skins on), soak them in cold water till tender; then drain and put them in a covered pan with very little water. Set them on the coals and simmer till entirely dissolved, then mash them with good brown sugar, and send to the table cold. To be eaten with roast meat, poultry and game.
PICK the cranberries over carefully, put a pound of broken lump sugar to a quart of the fruit; let them simmer down for a long time, add a little lemon-juice, pour into wetted moulds, and it will turn out in form.
SELECT some nice small onions, and boil them whole in milk, adding a very little salt and pepper, and some butter rolled in flour; let them boil till tender all through, but not till they lose their shape. Eat them with any sort of boiled meat.
WASH a pint of small button mushrooms, remove the stems and outside skins, stew them slowly in veal gravy or milk or cream, adding an onion, and seasoning with pepper, salt and a little butter rolled in flour. Their flavor will be heightened by salting a few the night before, to extract the juice. In dressing mushrooms, only those of a dull pearl color on the outside and the under part tinged with pale pink should be selected. If there is a poisonous one among them, the onion in the sauce will turn black. In such case throw the whole away.
SELECT a small stick of vanilla, split and break it up, and boil in a very little milk till all the flavor of the vanilla is extracted; strain it through very fine muslin and stir it into the cream. Give it one boil up in a small porcelain saucepan, and sweeten it well with white sugar. Send to the table hot.
WASH until entirely free from grit a bunch of spearmint; chop it fine, and mix with it one gill of vinegar and a quarter of a pound of sugar. This sauce is to be eaten with roast lamb.
To make curry powder, take one ounce of ginger, one ounce of mustard, one ounce of pepper, three ounces of coriander seed, three ounces of turmeric, half an ounce of cardamoms, one quarter ounce of cayenne pepper, one quarter ounce of cinnamon, and one quarter ounce of cummin seed. Pound all these ingredients very fine in a mortar, sift them and cork tight in a bottle.
Two spoonfuls of currant jelly, one stick of cinnamon, one blade of mace, grated white bread, ten tablespoonfuls of water; let it stew, and when done serve in a dish with venison steak.
ONE gill of claret, with as much water, some grated bread, three heads of shalots, a little whole pepper, mace, grated nutmeg and salt; let it stew over the fire, then heat it up with butter, and put it under the wild fowl, which, being a little roasted, will afford gravy to mix with the sauce.
TAKE a large bunch of celery, wash clean and pare; cut it very small and boil it softly till tender; add half a pint of cream, some mace, nutmeg, and a small piece of butter rolled in flour; then boil gently. This is a good sauce for roasted or boiled fowls, turkeys, partridges or other game.
THE walnuts should be young, freshly gathered and tender. Keep them in salt and water four days; then pound them in a marble mortar; to every dozen walnuts add a quart of vinegar; stir them every day for a week; then press all the juice from them through a bag; to every quart add one teaspoonful of pounded cloves, one of mace, one of grated nutmeg, and a small piece of whole pepper. Let the whole boil for about thirty minutes, and then bottle it, corking each bottle tightly and sealing the corks.
TAKE a quarter of a peck of large and freshly-gathered mushrooms. Cut off the ends of the stems, and place them in a deep pan, sprinkling salt over each layer. Let them remain for two days. Then put them in a sieve and strain off the juice; pour it into your preserving kettle. To every pint of the liquor allow one dozen cloves, the same of allspice, two or three pieces of mace, and half of a small nutmeg grated; let it boil for fifteen minutes; then remove it from the fire and let it stand for two or three days. Then, through a funnel, pour it gently from the sediment into small bottles. Finish with a spoonful of sweet oil on the top of each. Cork the bottles tightly and seal the corks.
SELECT large salt oysters, wash them in their liquor, and pound them in a marble mortar, leaving out the parts that are hard. To each pint of pounded oyster add half a pint of vinegar. Let them boil, and as the scum rises skim it off; to every quart of boiled oysters add a teaspoonful of beaten pepper, a small teaspoonful of powdered mace, and cayenne pepper and salt to taste; boil and strain through a sieve; when cool, bottle it up, filling the bottles full. Dip the cork in melted rosin or beeswax.
TAKE ripe tomatoes, scald them and remove their skins; let them stand a day covered with salt; strain them thoroughly to remove the seed. To every quart of tomatoes add three ounces of cloves, two ounces of black pepper, two nutmegs and a very little cayenne pepper, with a very little salt. Boil the liquor half an hour; let it cool and settle. Add one pint of best cider vinegar. Bottle, cork.and seal tightly, and keep in a cool place. This catsup, when ready for use, should be very thick and smooth.
NUMEROUS sauces are made with melted butter. If mixed with too much flour and water, and not enough of butter, it will be very poor, particularly if the water is in too large proportion. To prepare it properly allow a quarter of a pound of nice butter to a heaped tablespoonful of flour. Mix the butter and flour thoroughly before it goes to the fire. Then add to it four large tablespoonfuls of milk or hot water, well mixed in. Hold it over the fire in a small saucepan kept for the purpose. Take care there is no blaze where the saucepan is held. Cover it and shake it over the fire till it boils. Then, having skimmed it, add three or four hard-boiled eggs chopped small, and give it one more boil up. None but the freshest and best quality of butter should be used. This sauce is usually sent to table with boiled fish and boiled poultry, also with boiled mutton, lamb and veal.
TAKE half a pound of lean beef—slice and score it—and a piece of butter the size of a nutmeg; sprinkle with flour, add a small onion; then put it all into a stew-pan. Stir it round over the fire ten minutes; then pour into it one pint of boiling water; skim it carefully; let it all boil together for five minutes; strain it, and it is ready to serve.
TAKE a sheep’s melt, cut it into slices half an inch thick, flour them lightly, and either fry them a pale brown, or dissolve a small slice of butter in a thick saucepan; lay them in and shake them over a moderate fire until they have taken sufficient color; then pour gradually over them between a half and three-quarters of a pint of boiling water; add a little seasoning of pepper and salt, and stew the gravy very gently for upward of an hour and a half. Strain, and skim off the fat, and it will be ready for the table. When it is to accompany ducks or geese, brown a minced onion with the melt, and add a sprig of lemon thyme.