Cookery for every household

Note. — Different mixtures may be put inside the tomatoes instead of the celery, — such as small pieces of cauliflower, green peas, French beans, salsifys, or a mixture of vegetables. 669. Turkey Salad Cooked turkey. Celery. I Mayonnaise sauce. 1 or 2 hard boiled eggs, j Lettuce. Cut the remains of cold cooked turkey into small neat pieces and mix it with about half the amount of crisp celery finely shred. Add also a few slices of hard-boiled egg and mix lightly with a little mayonnaise sauce. Put this mixture into a salad Turkey Salad dish, arranging it in a dome-shaped mound. Smooth it over with a knife and coat with some more mayonnaise sauce. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or cress and garnish round with leaves of lettuce, or with curled celery and watercress. Sauce- making is one of the most interesting and certainly one of the most important branches of cookery. Almost all dishes are improved by a well-made sauce, while with others the sauce is the very making of them. Two or three really good sauces of contrasting colours and flavours will go a long way towards ensuring the success of a dinner, and, when well prepared, they will cause even what would otherwise be considered plain fare to be eaten with enjoyment and relish. Very full directions in regard to the successful making of sauces, together with a number of useful recipes, are given in this section. GENERAL REMARKS ON SAUCES Most sauces are easily made if the directions given are closely followed and the different ingredients carefully weighed and measured. The seasoning and flavouring is, in some cases, difficult, and it is almost impossible to lay down hard and fast rules as regards this. While each sauce should have its own distinctive flavour, over which nothing should predominate, the likes and dislikes of those who are to partake of it must be considered, and the minor flavourings must be blended in such a way as will produce an agreeable whole. This proper blending of flavours is the highest art in cookery, and one which can only be acquired with care and experience. A sauce is a somewhat more complicated preparation than a gravy. A gravy is, as a rule, just the simple juice of the meat to which a little water or stock is sometimes added to increase the quantity, as in the case of roast meat. This gravy is sometimes slightly thickened (see p. 208), but it should always remain simple in character and flavour. The thickening of a sauce may be made of flour and butter, yolks of eggs and cream, butter and cream, or some farinaceous product such as arrowroot, cornflour, potato flour, &c. The basis of most sauces is butter and flour cooked together, which makes a thickening. This thickening is frequently called a “ roux.” If for a white sauce, the flour and butter are not coloured ; if for a brown, the butter is first allowed to take colour, then the flour is added and cooked until brown also. To this thickening is added the liquid and seasoningsuitable to the dish with which the sauce has to be served. After the liquid is poured on the sauce must be stirred constantly until boiling, or it will be lumpy. Sauces frequently have a raw taste, owing to the flour in them not being properly cooked. No sauce is ready as soon as it thickens ; it must boil at least five minutes.