An ingenious cook will form as endless a
variety of these compositions as a musician
with his seven notes, or a painter with his
colours ; no part of her business offers so fair
and frequent an opportunity to display her
abilities. Spices, herbs, &c., are often very
absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.
Why have clove and allspice, or mace and
nutmeg in the same sauce? — or marjoram,
thyme, and savoury — or onions, leeks, shallots,
and garlic ? One will very well supply the
place of the other, and the frugal cook may
save something considerable by attending to
tliis, to the advantage of her employers, and her
own time and trouble. You might as well, to
make soup, order one quart of water from the
Thames, another from the New River, a third
from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea,
with a certain portion of spring and rain-
water.
To become a perfect mistress of the art of
cleverly extracting and combining flavours,
besides the gift of a good taste, requkes all the
experience and skill of the most accomplished
professor, and especially an intimate acquaint-
ance with the palate for which she is working.
Send your sauces to table as hot as possible.
Nothing can be more unsightly than the surface
of a sauce in a frozen state, or garnished with
grease on the top. The best way to got rid of
this is to pass it through a tamis or napkin
pre\'iously soaked in cold water; the coldness
of the napkin wiU coagulate the fat, and only
suft'er the pure gravy to pass through ; if any
particles of fat remain take them off by apply-
ing filtering paper as blotting paper is applied
to writing. Let your sauces boil up after yeu
put in wine, anchovy, or thickening, that their
flavours may be well blended with the other
ingredients ; and keep in mind that the chef
d'auvrc of cookery is to entertain the mouth
without offending the stomach. The cook's
judgment must direct her to lessen or increase
either of the ingredients according to the taste
of those she works for, and will always bo on
the alert to ascertain what are the favourite
accompaniments desired with each dish.
When you open a bottle of ketchup, essence
of anchovy, &c., throw away the old cork, and
stop it closely with a now cork thiit will fit it
very tight. Economy in c®rks is extremely
unwise ; in order to save a more trifle in the
price of the cork, you run the risk of losing
the valuable article it is intended to preserve.
It is a vulgar error that a bottle must be
well stopped when the cork is forced down
oven with the mouth of it ; it is rather a sign
that the cork is too small, and it should be
re-drawn and a larger one put in.
Sauces, To Colour.— When spinach-
leaves for green colouring cannot be had, take
a handful of young parsley-leaves stripped
from the stalks. Wash and dry them, and
pound them in a mortar. Put the pulp upon
a reversed sieve, and press the juice through
it with a wooden spoon. Put the juice into a
small jar, set this in a pan of boiling water,
and let it simmer gently for three or four
SATT
( 832 )
SAU
minutes. (For additional information regard-
ing the colouring of sauces, see Colouring.)
Sauces, To Thicken.— Sauces may be
Page 1718
Presented as published in 1892. 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
An ingenious cook will form as endless a variety of these compositions as a musician with his seven notes, or a painter with his colours ; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an opportunity to display her abilities. Spices, herbs, &c., are often very absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together. Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg in the same sauce? — or marjoram, thyme, and savoury — or onions, leeks, shallots, and garlic ? One will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to make soup, order one quart of water from the Thames, another from the New River, a third from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea, with a certain portion of spring and rainwater.
To become a perfect mistress of the art of cleverly extracting and combining flavours, besides the gift of a good taste, requires all the experience and skill of the most accomplished professor, and especially an intimate acquaintance with the palate for which she is working. Send your sauces to table as hot as possible. Nothing can be more unsightly than the surface of a sauce in a frozen state, or garnished with grease on the top. The best way to get rid of this is to pass it through a tamis or napkin previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of the napkin will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure gravy to pass through ; if any particles of fat remain take them off by applying filtering paper as blotting paper is applied to writing. Let your sauces beil up after you put in wine, anchovy, or thickening, that their flavours may be well blended with the other ingredients ; and keep in mind that the chef d'auvrc of cookery is to entertain the mouth without offending the stomach. The cook's judgment must direct her to lessen or increase either of the ingredients according to the taste of those she works for, and will always bo on the alert to ascertain what are the favourite accompaniments desired with each dish.
When you open a bottle of ketchup, essence of anchovy, &c., throw away the old cork, and stop it closely with a new cork that will fit it very tight. Economy in corks is extremely unwise ; in order to save a more trifle in the price of the cork, you run the risk of losing the valuable article it is intended to preserve. It is a vulgar error that a bottle must be well stopped when the cork is forced down even with the mouth of it ; it is rather a sign that the cork is too small, and it should be re-drawn and a larger one put in.
Sauces, To Colour.— When spinach leaves for green colouring cannot be had, take a handful of young parsley-leaves stripped from the stalks. Wash and dry them, and pound them in a mortar. Put the pulp upon a reversed sieve, and press the juice through it with a wooden spoon. Put the juice into a small jar, set this in a pan of boiling water, and let it simmer gently for three or four
SATT
( 832 )
SAU
minutes. (For additional information regarding the colouring of sauces, see Colouring.)
Sauces, To Thicken.— Sauces may be