heaped up tablespoonful will, roughly speaking,
represent about 2oz.), and dilute it gradually over
the fire with the stock or liquid you may choose,
stirring it well till it boils, to get it perfectly smooth ;
as soon as it boils up it should be tammied or sieved,
and receive any additions required by the recipe.
Naturally sauce prepared in this way can be made
much quicker than by the ordinary method, and is
the secret of the large variety of sauces used by a
foreign chef, who would not dream of repeating the
same sauce twice, in any menu, however long.
Eather a different plan from that pursued by the
ordinary good plain cook to whom brown sauce is
brown sauce, and nothing more ; and as such to be
used indiscriminately from one end of her dinner to
the other. This is really no exaggeration. I once
myself beheld a highly-trained and so-called “ pro-
fessed cook” start her preparations for a dinner by
compounding a large basinful each of white and
brown sauce, i.e., the traditional “ bit of butter rolled
in flour,” just boiled up with milk in one case, and
stock in the other, and plentifully seasoned for the
one with mace and nutmeg, and for the other with a
combination of most of the contents of the cruet
stand. The white sauce began duty with the fish,
and went on to the pudding, when it was flavoured
up as an accompaniment of the sweet ; whilst the
brown sauce started with the first entree, and
literally ended with the savoury ! In another case,
and equally with an “experienced” cook, I once
tasted the hare soup, which was the first dish in the
menu, straight through to the savoury omelet. Stock
192
ENTREES.
is stock, and so the contents of the soup pot had *
been economically utilised straight through from
first to last. Now this economy, though perhaps
praiseworthy (?) is in ordinary cases distinctly to be
deprecated.
Good cookery acknowledges practically four founda-
tion sauces, or sauces meres as they are called in France.
Veloute and bechamel for the white, and brown and
espagnole for the brown sauces. These four are the
foundations of nearly all sauces, saving the butter
sauces, which are a class apart.
To begin with the white sauces. Veloute, or velvet
sauce, as it may be Englished, is made by dissolving
together loz. each of butter and fine sifted flour,
diluting these when perfectly cooked and blended,
with half a pint or so of colourless stock made from
bones, &c, ; this is then tammied through a woollen
cloth, or pressed through a hair sieve, to ensure its
perfect smoothness, and seasoned with salt and
pepper to taste. In this condition it serves as a
foundation for many sauces, but if it be Used by
itself, it is generally finished off by the addition of
one or two tiny morsels of butter, stirred into it
whilst boiling hot just as you lift it from the fire;
or by a spoonful or two of cream, or a spoonful or so
of new milk beaten up with the yolk of an egg (and
in this case it is often spoken of and used as
allemande, though really this sauce needs a strong
flavouring of mushrooms besides the egg and milk
mixture called by cooks a liaison). In plain English,
foundation veloute is neither more nor less than
melted- butter made with colourless stock of any
SAUCES.
193
Page 93
Presented as published in 1901. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
heaped up tablespoonful will, roughly speaking, represent about 2oz.), and dilute it gradually over the fire with the stock or liquid you may choose, stirring it well till it boils, to get it perfectly smooth ; as soon as it boils up it should be tammied or sieved, and receive any additions required by the recipe.
Naturally sauce prepared in this way can be made much quicker than by the ordinary method, and is the secret of the large variety of sauces used by a foreign chef, who would not dream of repeating the same sauce twice, in any menu, however long. Rather a different plan from that pursued by the ordinary good plain cook to whom brown sauce is brown sauce, and nothing more ; and as such to be used indiscriminately from one end of her dinner to the other. This is really no exaggeration. I once myself beheld a highly-trained and so-called “ professed cook” start her preparations for a dinner by compounding a large basinful each of white and brown sauce, i.e., the traditional “ bit of butter rolled in flour,” just boiled up with milk in one case, and stock in the other, and plentifully seasoned for the one with mace and nutmeg, and for the other with a combination of most of the contents of the cruet stand. The white sauce began duty with the fish, and went on to the pudding, when it was flavoured up as an accompaniment of the sweet ; whilst the brown sauce started with the first entree, and literally ended with the savoury ! In another case, and equally with an “experienced” cook, I once tasted the hare soup, which was the first dish in the menu, straight through to the savoury omelet. Stock
is stock, and so the contents of the soup pot had * been economically utilised straight through from first to last. Now this economy, though perhaps praiseworthy (?) is in ordinary cases distinctly to be deprecated.
Good cookery acknowledges practically four foundation sauces, or sauces meres as they are called in France. Veloute and bechamel for the white, and brown and espagnole for the brown sauces. These four are the foundations of nearly all sauces, saving the butter sauces, which are a class apart.
To begin with the white sauces. Veloute, or velvet sauce, as it may be Englished, is made by dissolving together 1oz. each of butter and fine sifted flour, diluting these when perfectly cooked and blended, with half a pint or so of colourless stock made from bones, &c, ; this is then tammied through a woollen cloth, or pressed through a hair sieve, to ensure its perfect smoothness, and seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. In this condition it serves as a foundation for many sauces, but if it be Used by itself, it is generally finished off by the addition of one or two tiny morsels of butter, stirred into it whilst boiling hot just as you lift it from the fire; or by a spoonful or two of cream, or a spoonful or so of new milk beaten up with the yolk of an egg (and in this case it is often spoken of and used as allemande, though really this sauce needs a strong flavouring of mushrooms besides the egg and milk mixture called by cooks a liaison). In plain English, foundation veloute is neither more nor less than melted- butter made with colourless stock of any