Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Mint Sauce, Hot. — Put into a saucepan four sprigs of fresh mint, a bay-leaf, a quarter of an onion, one table -spoonful of canned tomatoes or one slice of a fresh tomato, one teaspoonful of sugar, one table-spoonful of vinegar, the beaten white of one egg, and one cup of rich, clear stock. Place the pan over the fire, and when the contents come to the boilingpoint draw it to the cooler part of the fire and let the sauce simmer ten minutes. Strain it through a sieve and again place it over the fire. To a teaspoonful of corn-starch add two table-spoonfuls of sherry and stir it into the sauce, continuing to stir until the sauce is again boiling. Then chop fine a few fresh mint leaves, add them to the sauce, and serve. Misers’ Sauce. — Take some young onions or shallots and chop them fine, a little scalded parsley, and two teaspoonfuls of grated horseradish. Mix these with salad oil and vinegar, taking an equal quantity of each. Mushroom Sauce. — Peel and wash 54 lb. of fresh mushrooms, dry well, chop fine, put them in a clean towel, and squeeze out the water. Chop separately three table - spoonfuls of parsley ; chop also half a table-spoonful of shallots. Put in a small saucepan one and a half table-spoonfuls of butter; when melted, put the shallots in. Cook three minutes, stirring constantly, and add to it mushrooms and parsley. Cook three minutes more, always stirring ; add one heaping teaspoonful of flour ; mix well with one salt -spoonful of salt, onehalf one of pepper, then pour over while stirring one-half pint of good, warm consomme. Cover the saucepan; cook very slowly for fifteen minutes, remove from the fire, and finish the sauce with two table-spoonfuls of very fresh butter. Mix well and serve with the fish. This sauce could be made the day before. Serve in a hot sauce-boat. Mustard Sauce. — Blend together on a plate 3 ozs. of butter with a dessert-spoonful of browned flour, half the quantity of the best mustard, and a little salt. Stir these ingredients, when smoothly mixed, into a quarter of a pint of boiling water and simmer five minutes. Add enough vinegar to flavor. Olive Sauce (for roast duck, beefsteak, and many entrees). — Soak one and one-half dozen Queen olives in hot water for twenty minutes. Put into a saucepan one table-spoonful of butter, and when it is melted add one table-spoonful each of chopped carrot and onion. When they are lightly browned stir in a heaping table-spoonful of flour, and keep stirring until all are thoroughly browned. Then gradually add one and one -half cupfuls of brown stock, a blade of mace, one clove, a bay-leaf, and salt and pepper. Cover and let the sauce just simmer for twenty minutes. Meanwhile pare each olive from the stone in one long, spiral piece. Let the olives boil in a little water ten minutes ; then drain them and drop them into the strained Orange Sauce Rhubarb Sauce sauce. Heat it to boiling-point and serve. Orange Sauce (for cold meat). — Rub the rind of two sweet oranges upon three or four lumps of sugar. Mix with them a wineglassful of port or claret, a quarter of a pint of dissolved red- currant jelly, a teaspoonful of mixed mustard, a pinch of cayenne, and two table-spoonfuls of thin strips of orange- rind. This sauce, if bottled and corked, will keep for some time. Time, five or six minutes to dissolve the jelly.