White Roux, Or French Thickening

Proceed exactly as for the preceding receipt, but dredge in the flour as soon as the butter is in full simmer, and be careful not to allow the thickening to take the slightest colour: this is used for white gravies or sauces.

How To Prepare Bread For Frying Fish

Cut thick slices from the middle of a loaf of light bread, pare the crust entirely from them, and dry them gradually in a cool oven until they are crisp quite through; let them become cold, then roll or beat them into fine crumbs, and keep them in a dry place for use. To strew over hams or cheeks of bacon, the bread should be left all night in the oven, which should be sufficiently heated to brown, as well as to harden it: it ought indeed to be entirely converted into equally-coloured crust. It may be sifted through a dredging-box on to the hams, after it has been reduced almost to powder.

Browned Flour For Thickening Soups And Gravies

Spread it on a tin or dish, and colour it without burning, in a gentle oven, or before the fire in a Dutch or American oven: turn it often, or the edges will be too much browned before the middle is enough so. This, blended with butter, makes a convenient thickening for soups or gravies, of which it is desirable to deepen the colour; and it requires leas time and attention than the french roux of page 92.

Fried Bread-Crumbs

Grate lightly into very fine crumbs four ounces of stale bread, and shake them through a cullender, without rubbing or touching them with the hands. Dissolve two ounces of fresh butter in a frying-pan, throw in the crumbs, and stir them constantly over a moderate fire, until they are all' of a clear gold colour; lift them out with a skimmer, spread them on a soft cloth laid upon a sieve reversed, and dry them before the fire. They may be more delicately prepared by browning them in a gentle oven without the addition of butter.

Bread, 4 ozs.; butter, 2 ozs.

Fried Bread, Or Sippets of Bread For Garnishing

Cut the crumb of a stale loaf in slices a quarter-inch thick: form them into diamonds, or half diamonds, or shape them with a paste-cutter in any other way; fry them in fresh butter, some of a very pale brown, and others a deeper colour: dry them well, and place them alternately round the dish that is to be garnished. They may be made to adhere to the edge of the dish, when they are required for ornament only, by means of a little flour and white of egg brushed over the side which is placed on it: this must be allowed to dry before they are served.

The Rajah's Sauce

Strain, very clear, the juice of six fine lemons; add to it a small tea-spoonful of salt, a drachm of good cayenne-pepper, and a slight strip or two of the lemon-rind cut extremely thin. Give the sauce three or four minutes simmering: turn it into a China jug or basin; and when it is quite cold, strain it again,- put it into small dry bottles, cork them well, and store them in a cool place which is tree from damp. The sauce is good without being boiled, but is apt to ferment after a time: it is, we think, of much finer flavour than Chili vinegar.

Lemon-juice 1/2 pint; salt 1 small teaspoonful; cayenne 1 drachm simmered 5 minutes.