Handbook of domestic science and household arts for use in elementary schools

of our well-known sauces still retain the name of the statesman or noble who created them — for example, sauce a la Bechamel. After the Eevolution, the cooks of the nobles, being obliged to provide for themselves, established restaurants where the most delicate and elaborate products of their skill were at the service of the one who could pay the price. The world has adopted the restaurant system, and French cookery is the standard of excellence. The names of these famous cooks are preserved in literature as well as in our recipes. Sauce Robert is said to be named from its inventor, a cook, and to have given the title to a satirical pamphlet by the French historian Thiers. This pamphlet, like the sauce, was not only acid, but very biting, and got its author into difficulty. The modern sauce is composed of meat essences, vegetable flavors, spices and condiments, held together by a bind- ing material made by heating flour to a very high temperature so as to change it into a gkielike product. This change is best secured by heating the dry flour and fat together till they become thin, and in some cases brown, when the liquid is slowly added, and all cooked till the product is smooth and velvety. It may then be strained and kept in a cool place till needed, or kept hot in a double boiler till ready for use. Most sauces have as a foundation brown sauce or roux, or white sauce or velouté, both easily made if materials are perfect and care is used in compounding. Materials. — Flour, butter, potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, salsify, and asparagus. Outline. — I. Review of previous lesson. Cook in boiling salted water the following vegetables : potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, salsify, and asparagus. II. Action of dry heat on starch. Experiment 9. Place one tablespoon dry starch or flour on a piece of paper (cellulose) and leave them in a hot oven (300° F.) for fifteen minutes or such a length of time as is necessary to change the color of starch to a light yellow. Note taste and odor. To one-third the product add three teaspoons water and boil. Filter to remove unchanged starch. The solution contains dextrin used as a glue. Add twice its bu.lk of alcohol, and dextrin is precipitated ; filter and dry. Test starch paste with tincture of iodine. Test dextrin with tincture of iodine. III. Starch or flour cooked in hot butter or other fat, as beef or olive oil. Experiment 10. To one teaspoon very hot but not browned butter add two teaspoons flour; continue to heat and stir till the flour is thoroughly mixed with the butter, and the mixture has become thin but not brown. (Remove a drop to a white piece of paper and save to test with iodine.) Then slowly add one tablespoon milk or stock, stirring over the fire till the mixture is thick and smooth, then add a second tablespoon liquid; continue till four and one-half tablespoons liquid have been added. Heat the product to boiling point and season with one-sixteenth teaspoon salt and a few grains white pepper. The high temperature conveyed by the fat quickly changes the flour into dextrin, which, being soluble, may be diluted with liquid and yet remain smooth and paste-like.