The home cook book

JELLY SAUCE FOR MEATS In an earthen or porcelain saucepan melt over a slow fire a tumbler of some jelly — either currant or grape — and when it is melted and warm stir in a tablespoon of butter. Let all come to boil, pour into the hot dish in which it is to be served, add a tablespoon of claret or other red wine and serve at once. The sauce goes well with mutton and lamb. MAITRE D'HOTEL SAUCE Beat three tablespoons of butter till it creams. Add the juice of a small lemon, quarter of a teaspoon of salt, a dash of cayenne, and three teaspoons of minced parsley. This sauce is an agreeable addition to broiled chicken, fish, etc., and is referred to under various receipts. MINT SAUCE This is a relish with roast lamb — with which meat alone it is eaten. By some tastes it is much liked. Not every one agrees with the Englishman who, when mint sauce was passed him, said, "Thank you, I never eat smells." Be sure your mint is fresh and green and fair. Wash it, strip the leaves from the stems and mince them fine. Put the mince in a bowl and mix with it gradually clear cider vinegar not too strong. If the vinegar is very strong, it is better to dilute it, even to using half water, for sharp vinegar destroys the mint aroma. Add also a teaspoon of sugar to a tablespoon of the minced mint. Have your sauce about as thick as horseradish when all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed in. 7 Vol. 2 Serve from a small dish with a teaspoon or ladle. A spoon of this sauce is laid on the rim of the plate and a pinch of it taken with the meat. OLIVE SAUCE Add to "Brown Sauce," on page 142, three-quarters of a cup of pickled olives, stoned and chopped. ONION SAUCE First peel and then chop fine a quart of onions. Melt in a saucepan a heaping tablespoon of butter and into the hot butter drop the minced onions and gently cook till tender. Season with white pepper and salt, and stir in two tablespoons of fiour. Last, add a cup of cream, bring to boil and put through a sieve. This same sauce may be served with cold mutton, and as a delicious relish for many other meats. SAGE-AND-ONION SAUCE Take a bunch of fresh sage leaves picked from the stems. Wash and put in boiling water with just enough water to cover them. Boil ten minutes. Then drain and chop small. Meanwhile, have boiling in another pan two good-sized onions. When they are tender mince them and mix with the minced sage. Stir together with a tablespoon of fresh butter and serve with roast goose, roast duck, or roast pork. Into the sauce may be stirred some of the gravy of the meat with which it is served. This moistens the sauce and improves it. ONION-JUICE FOR SEASONING Peel, cut the onion in small pieces, and press in a lemon squeezer which you use for no other purpose but squeezing onions. Only a few drops of onion- juice are needed at a time in salads, meat sauces, etc., and with a little glass squeezer at hand it is readily obtained. If the pieces of the onion squeeze out, tie the onion in a piece of damp cheesecloth. Or if you have not a squeezer, use this method of expressing the juice: Take the dry layers off the onions, hack the juicy layers with a dull silver knife. Press the onion hard with the blade, and the juice will drip from the blade.