Part 3

Béarnaise Sauce.--This is one of the most difficult sauces to make, on account of the danger of the eggs curdling; but by the following method the work is rendered more sure than by the usual plan. It has been said that the terrors of a cook are Béarnaise sauce and omelette soufflée, but neither is really difficult; great care only is necessary for success with each.

Chop four shallots fine, put them into a saucepan with half a gill of Tarragon vinegar and half a gill of plain vinegar; boil till reduced to one tablespoonful; then add one gill of white sauce, mixing well. Stand the saucepan in another of boiling water; then add, one at a time, three yolks of eggs, beating each, one well in before adding another, and on no account let the sauce boil. Remove the saucepan from the fire when the eggs are all in and show signs of thickening. Have ready three ounces of butter cut into small pieces; drop one in at a time, and with an egg-whisk beat the sauce till the butter is blended; then add another piece, and so on, till all the butter is used. If added too quickly the butter will oil, therefore great care must be taken to see one piece entirely blend before adding another. The butter will probably salt the sauce enough, but if not, add a very little salt. This sauce should have the appearance of a Welsh-rabbit when ready to spread; in other words, it should be very thick, smooth, and dark yellow.

Soubise.--This sauce, which transforms ordinary mutton-chops into “côtelettes à la Soubise,” is very easily made. Boil half a dozen Bermuda onions (medium size) in milk till quite tender; press out all the milk; chop them as fine as possible; sprinkle a quarter of a saltspoonful of white pepper and one of salt over them; then stir them with a tablespoonful of butter into half a pint of white sauce. If the onions should thin the sauce too much (they are sometimes very watery), thicken with a yolk of egg, or blend a teaspoonful of flour with the butter before stirring it in. Boil the sauce three minutes. Needless to say, if the yolk of egg is added, it must be beaten in after the sauce is removed from the stove, and only allowed to thicken, not boil.

The sauces so far given are what French cooks call “grand sauces.” They are the most important part of the dish with which they are served, and, as we have seen, give the name to it. There are numberless other sauces of which the white sauce is parent that are, however, not indispensable to the dish they are served with--by which I mean a boiled fish may be served with oyster sauce or Dutch sauce, the sauce being in this case simply the adjunct.

A dessertspoonful of capers put into half a pint of white sauce, with a teaspoonful of the vinegar, makes caper sauce.

Celery sauce is, again, white sauce with the pulp of boiled celery. Boil the white part of four heads of celery (sliced thin) in milk till it will mash; this will take an hour, perhaps more; then rub the pulp through a coarse sieve, and stir it into half a pint of white sauce made with half rich cream.

Oyster sauce is white sauce made by using the oyster liquor instead of stock. The oysters should be bearded, just allowed to plump in the liquor, which must then be strained for the sauce, using a gill of it with a gill of thick cream to make half a pint; for this quantity a dozen and a half of small oysters will be required.

Shrimp sauce, parsley sauce, lobster sauce, cucumber sauce, and all the family are white sauce with the addition of the ingredient naming it. Cucumber sauce, which is approved for fish, is made by grating a cucumber, and adding it, with the water from it, to some white sauce; boil till well flavored, and then strain. If too thin, boil till thick, stirring carefully.

For shrimp sauce canned shrimps serve very well indeed; they must be thrown for a minute into cold water, well stirred in it to remove superfluous salt, then drained, and dried on a cloth. Put a gill of shrimps to half a pint of béchamel made with fish stock, boil once, and stir in just enough essence of anchovy to make the sauce a pale shrimp pink.

Cardinal sauce is a handsome sauce for boiled fish. It is made by drying the coral from a lobster, then pounding it quite smooth, with one ounce of butter, until it is a perfectly smooth paste. Stir this into half a pint of béchamel. It should be a fine red when mixed; pass through a sieve, and add as much cayenne as will go on the end of the blade of a small penknife.

Hollandaise or Dutch sauce is best made in the following way. There are other methods, but this one meets general approval, is not difficult, and agrees with many who cannot possibly eat it when oil is used.

Make half a pint of drawn butter by melting one ounce of butter with one ounce of flour over the fire; let them bubble together (stirring the while) for one minute; then stir in half a pint of boiling water and half a teaspoonful of salt. So far, the making is exactly the same as for white sauce, except that water is used instead of cream and stock. Boil once, then set the saucepan in another of water, and break up an ounce of butter into small pieces and add them; stir briskly after each piece is added, and see it blend before putting more. When all is in, add the beaten yolks of five eggs, removing the saucepan from the fire while doing it. They must be very carefully and gradually stirred in, and when well mixed returned to the fire until they begin to thicken. The eggs must be kept from curdling. Squeeze in two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice, and add just a dust of cayenne. This should be a thick, yellow, custard-like sauce, and have a perceptible acidity without being sour.

IV.

BROWN SAUCES.

It has been already stated that the family of brown sauces, like the white, have one parent, Espagnole, or Spanish sauce, which is the foundation for Châteaubriand, Financière, Robert, Poivrade, Piquante, and other sauces. Ordinary brown sauce, like ordinary white, is often made without stock--simply an ounce of flour, one of butter, browned together, and half a pint of boiling water added, then boiled till thick and smooth. But it may be safely said that in high-class dark sauces water should play no part; its place must be taken by stock of good quality, which is often enriched by reducing or adding glaze.

The characteristics of finely made Spanish sauce are a clear beautiful brown, by no means approaching black, absolute freedom from grease, and a fine high flavor, so well blended that no particular spice or herb can be detected. Spanish sauce is made as follows: Wash, peel, and cut small six mushrooms (or a dessertspoonful of mushroom powder), one small carrot, one small onion, and one shallot; dry them, and fry them a fine brown in a tablespoonful of butter, but do not let them burn; drain off the butter. Melt in a copper saucepan two ounces of butter and two ounces of flour, stir them together over the fire till of a pale bright brown, then add a pint of stock, the fried vegetables, and a gill of tomato sauce; let all gently simmer for half an hour with the cover off. Strain through a fine sieve. When Spanish sauce is to be served without any addition, and not as a foundation, a wineglass of sherry is used and the same quantity of stock omitted.

It becomes Châteaubriand by the addition of a wineglass of sherry reduced to half a glass by boiling in a tiny saucepan, a dessertspoonful of fresh parsley very finely chopped, and the juice of half a small lemon. These must be added to one third the quantity of Espagnole, or Spanish sauce, given in the foregoing recipe. Then stir in gradually, bit by bit, one ounce of butter, letting each piece blend before adding more.

I have said here and elsewhere, “the juice of half a small lemon.” Yet I would caution the reader to squeeze it in gradually, because some lemons are intensely sour, and a very few drops of juice from such go farther than that of the whole half of an average lemon. Châteaubriand sauce is by no means acid; there must be only a just perceptible dash of acidity, and only so much lemon juice used as will give it zest. Piquante sauce is different; there should be acidity enough to provoke appetite; yet even this should be by no means sour.

To make Piquante sauce, chop a shallot fine, put it, with a tablespoonful of vinegar, into a very small saucepan; let them stew together until the vinegar is entirely absorbed, but do not let it burn. Then add to it half a pint of Spanish sauce and a gill of stock, with a bay-leaf and a sprig of thyme; cook very gently ten minutes, remove the thyme and bay-leaf, and add a dessertspoonful of chopped pickled cucumber, a teaspoonful of capers, and a dessertspoonful of finely chopped parsley. Simmer very slowly ten minutes more; then add enough cayenne to lay on the tip of a penknife blade.

Poivrade resembles piquante sauce very closely, differing from it, however, by the addition of wine and higher flavoring. To make it, fry an onion and a small carrot cut fine, a tomato sliced, and an ounce of lean ham in two ounces of butter; let them brown slightly; then add to them half a pint of claret, a bouquet of herbs, two cloves, and six peppercorns; let them simmer till the wine is reduced one half; then add half a pint of good Spanish sauce, boil gently ten minutes, strain, and serve very hot. A true French poivrade has a soupçon of garlic, obtained by rubbing a crust on a clove of it, and simmering it in the sauce before straining it; but although many would like the scarcely perceptible zest imparted by this cautious use of garlic, no one should try the experiment unless sure of her company.

A “bouquet of herbs” always means two sprigs of parsley, one of thyme, one of marjoram, and a bay-leaf, so rolled together (the bay-leaf in the middle) and tied that there is no difficulty in removing it from any dish which is not to be strained.

The well-known Bordelaise sauce is simply Spanish sauce with the addition of white wine and shallots. Scald a tablespoonful of chopped shallots; put them to half a pint of Chablis, Sauterne, or any similar white wine; let the wine reduce to one gill; then mix with it half a pint of Spanish sauce and the sixth part of a saltspoonful of pepper. Strain and serve.

Robert sauce, that excellent adjunct to beefsteak, varies again from Bordelaise, vinegar and mustard and fried onions taking the place of the wine and shallot. Chop three medium-sized onions quite fine; fry them in a tablespoonful of butter until they are a clear yellowish-brown, stirring them constantly as they fry; drain them, and put them to a half-pint of Spanish sauce, to which you add a wineglass of stock (to allow for boiling away); simmer gently twenty minutes; add a pinch of pepper; strain; then mix a teaspoonful of vinegar in a cup with a teaspoonful of mustard; stir this into the sauce.

Sauce à la Normande is one of the most delicious sauces for baked fish of any kind, although usually associated with sole. To half a pint of Spanish sauce add a dozen mushrooms sliced in half, a dozen small oysters with the beards removed, and a dozen crawfish, if they are to be had, or their place may be taken by a tablespoonful of shrimps picked (canned shrimps, washed and dried, answer very well), one tablespoonful of essence of anchovy, and just a dust of Cayenne pepper.

Light Normande is made by using béchamel instead of Spanish sauce, adding all the other materials; it is then a pale salmon-colored sauce, excellent for boiled fish.

A favorite English sauce for fish, which is also brown or pink, according to whether it is intended for baked or boiled fish, is the Downton sauce. To three quarters of a pint of béchamel add a dessertspoonful of anchovy essence and a small wineglass of sherry, mix well, and serve.

Orange sauce for game is made with half a pint of Spanish sauce boiled five minutes to make it rather thicker than usual, the juice of three sweet oranges, and the peel of one. This peel must be so thinly pared as to be transparent. Boil this peel half an hour in water, then shred it into fine even strips half an inch long, and not thicker than broom straw. Stew this shredded peel another half-hour in a gill of stock, with a scant teaspoonful of sugar; then add it to the sauce, with half a saltspoonful of salt, and boil five minutes.

Matelote may come in with the brown sauces, although it is not made with Spanish sauce as a foundation, but only with strong stock. It is used to simmer fish in when directed to be à la matelote, and if it were already thickened the whole would burn. It is made as follows: Half a pint of Sauterne or Chablis, half a pint of rich stock, two bay-leaves, three leaves of tarragon, chervil, and chive, a scant saltspoonful of salt, a quarter one of pepper; simmer these until reduced to one half-pint. A touch of garlic is indispensable to the true matelote, but when used it must be done with the greatest caution; a fork stuck into a clove of it, then stirred in the sauce (the fork, when withdrawn, not the garlic), or a crust rubbed once across a piece of it, is the only way in which it should be used.