The spirit of cookery

Many recipes prescribe a further concentration of the finished velout6 sauce previous to the additions of the cream. This indicates the weakness of the broth generally employed in the preparation of the stock sauce. When normal broth is employed these frequent concentrations become quite unnecessary. Sauce à la Béchamel by the Direct Process. This sauce is made without the pedigree of grand sauce in one process ; it also passes in French works under the name of Sauce a la Ste. Ménéhould, and in English books as cream sauce. Place six parts by weight of fresh butter into a stewpan, add four parts of sifted flour, some tincture of nutmeg and pepper, and a little salt ; knead the whole well together, and heat it to produce a dextrine roux ; add a carrot and an onion, both sliced, parsley, thyme, and bay-leaf, thirty-two parts of standard broth and sixteen parts of cream ; boil the mixture for about half an hour, while stirring it, until it be of the desired consistency ; then pass through a tammy, and keep hot in the water-bath ready for use. ALLEMANDE SAUCE Allemande Sauce, Sauce à l'Allemande. Add to the required quantity of velout6 sauce a little essence of mushroom, or some hashed mushrooms, and boil. When the mixture is reduced to the volume of the veloute taken, and the mushrooms are well cooked, take the mixture off the stove and incorporate with it a binding or leason of yolk of egg, in the proportion of four yolks to the pint of sauce, a little tincture of nutmeg, some cream, butter and lemon-juice. Stir sauce and leason over the fire until the mixture is bound, without letting it boil ; pass through a tammy into a saucepan, and keep in the water-bath ready for use. This sauce is the foundation of many others, especially fish sauces. Some French chefs omit the leason of yolks ; but then the specificity is taken away, and the sauce relapses into the state of veloute. Let the reader remember that bechamel is veloute plus cream ; allemande is bechamel plus yolk ; or if less cream be taken, then allemande is veloute plus yolk and some cream. These modifications have their different spheres of application, and should be carefully preserved.* * The name allemande, in connection with sauce, is applied by earlier writers, e.g.. La Chapelle, to a green, acidulous sauce of a compound nature, to be eaten with roast lamb {loc. cit., vol. v., p. 35). In the work of this author the names of veloutd and bechamel do not occur ; but the name of the former is White Sauce a I’Epoidetle {ib., p. 37). The only equivalent of bechamel is Sauce d la Grime pour Poinsons {ib., p. 33), which does not contain meat extract, but anchovies. The Sauce d I’ Espagnolle is typically described {ib., p. 27). In ‘Dons de Comus,’ however, bechamel occurs as passie, and as d I'ivoire, which La Chapelle also describes, though not under the name of bechamel. The B&chamel pcMHie of ‘ Dons de Comus ’ has no leason, and is, in fact, merely a hot mixture of cream and butter, flavoured with herbs and spices ; while the bechamel so called is a roux, flavoured with herbs and spices, to which cream is added. Neither of these sauces contains extract of meat ; but the Sauce d I’ivoire (vol. i., p. 38), called bdchamel only in the index (p. 473), is our regular veloute rich in broth by white br.aise, and contains no cream.