OF the whole category of simple sauces none is more generally maltreated than "bread-sauce." Deli-cions when properly made, it is positively a repulsive mess when wrongly treated. You have no doubt lamented many a time over the wretched compound which your cook persists in sending up under this title; and I have heard people say that true "bread-sauce" cannot be made in India. Now, I have tasted quite as nasty a composition as Ramasamy's in England, in fact even there you more frequently get it bad, than good. The good "bread-sauce," now served at the junior United Service Club in London, is due to the admonitions of an officer, once well known in Madras.

The system pursued by the ignorant cook may be thus described:- he cuts some slices of bread, or grates bread-crumbs enough for his requirements, over which he pours a tea-cupful of boiling water, he gives that a pinch of salt, perhaps (but by no means for certain) a spoonful of milk, and a quantity of whole pepper corns, and cloves; he stirs this to the consistency of thick porridge, and finally sends up a mixture which may be plainly described as spiced bread poultice!

Setting aside other considerations for a moment, can anything be more disagreeable than the accidental biting of a whole clove, or a pepper corn, in any dish or sauce? Common sense accordingly dictates that when the use of these condiments is necessary, we should strain the liquid in which they have been placed before serving it.

The back-bone of "bread-sauce" is the flavouring of the milk with which it is made, to begin with; that done, to strain it carefully over your grated crumbs; then to re-heat it, and finish it off with a good table-spoonful of cream at the moment you serve it. In the absence of cream, the yolk of one egg, beaten up in a little milk till it looks creamy, may be added, off the fire, just at the last, but cream should be used if possible.

To flavour the milk, you must take a good sized white onion, peel off the outside skin, cut it into quarters, and put them, with a dozen pepper corns, six cloves, a blade of mace, a pinch of grated nutmeg, and a salt-spoonful of salt, into a sauce-pan containing not less than half a pint of good milk. The utmost care is now necessary, for milk boils up so rapidly that you must watch your sauce-pan narrowly, and use a very low fire to retard the boiling-stage. Remove the pan as soon as the surface of the milk looks frothy : let it cool a little, and replace it, continuing the operation until the onion is done, and adding a little milk from time to time to make good the loss by evaporation. Now, strain it off through a piece of muslin into a bowl, and add to it, spoonful by spoonful, the stale bread-crumbs you have already prepared, till your eye tells you that you have attained the right consistency; then heat the sauce up again, and finish it as I have already described.

I can always rely upon making as good a "bread-sauce" here as I ever ate in England, but then I would never attempt it unless I had all the ingredients at my command. There can be no evasion of the milk. Water at once produces the poultice I have condemned, and the spoonful of cream, must be added if you desire success.

This sauce richly deserves the trouble I have prescribed, and it will be found in the end economical, for by its aid a carefully-roasted fowl provides an enjoyable meal; whilst fillets of partridges, or chicken, bread-crumbed, nicely fried, and garnished with a crisp curl or two of fried bacon, assume at once a superior character. A young pigeon, split, and grilled over a fast fire, besprinkled with fried bread-crumbs, and assisted by good bread-sauce, forms a nice luncheon for a lady whose husband's days are spent at office, or for a convalescent beginning to mend after a long illness.

To continue simple sauces :- that known as Sauce au pauvre homme is produced by first frying a minced onion in a little butter until it assumes a golden brown tint, and then pouring in a little broth made from scraps, with a tea-spoonful of vinegar : you must give this a boil, and then strain it by degrees into another sauce-pan containing melted butter and flour; work this well with a wooden spoon and add a pinch of salt, one of sugar, a little pepper, and some minced parsley.

Dutch sauce as eaten in Holland, the veritable 'Hollan-daise,' is butter plainly melted in a sauce-pan, flavoured with a little pepper, a little salt, and the squeeze of a lemon; this is allowed to settle over the fire, and is then poured free from the sediment at the bottom of the pan, into a piping hot metal sauce-boat. This sauce is admirable with fish, asparagus, and all green vegetables; you must, of course, substitute lime for lemon, and have butter enough to spare for the undertaking. I strongly advise my fortunate friends on the Neilgherries to make this sauce (a little goes a long way mind) for their globe artichokes; one table-spoonful is enough for one artichoke, and the plates should be really hot.*

Hollandaise made with eggs is known abroad as Hollan-daise jaune.

"Horse-radish sauce" is the grand standard adjunct to our national food, "the roast beef of old England," and beef in India cries out for help far more piteously than its rich relation far away. Horse-radish grows well at Ootaca-mund, and I once grew some with success at Bangalore, but the scraped root of the moringa, or "drum-stick" tree, provides so good a substitute that we may rest contented with a sauce thus composed :- Scrape as finely as you can a cupful of the root shavings, simmer them in half a pint of chicken broth; when done, thicken the broth custard-wise with the yolks of three eggs beaten up with a dessertspoonful of tarragon vinegar; add pepper, salt, and a very little grated nutmeg, and serve in a sauce-boat.

A richer recipe suggests the addition of a coffee-cupful of cream with the yolks of the eggs, and then to let the sauce remain on the fire en bain-marie, stirring well until it is very hot (but not boiling) and serving it in a hot sauce-boat.

The cold form of this sauce is perhaps the easiest, and I think as nice as any+:- you simply rasp the moringa, or horse-radish root, till you have a cupful of fine scrapings, and mingle them with an ordinary mayonnaise, or tartare sauce, iced. Cream is, of course, a great addition, but the usual mixture of eggs, oil, mustard, and vinegar, will give you a good result.

And this leads me to discuss at once the two sauces I have just mentioned.

* A tea-spoonful of anchovy vinegar is in this case better than lime-juice. - W.

+ Most delicious with cold roast beef. - W.

Mayonnaise sauce is certainly one of the most useful, and popular of all the sauces we attempt out here. In ordering it, if you know what to say, and give good materials, you may be certain of success. Be sure that the oil you give is thoroughly good, or the result will be very painful; and examine your mustard, vinegar, and eggs. Assuming that these are all satisfactory, set to work in the following manner:-

Commence with the dry ingredients, and put into a soup-plate, or slop-basin, the cold, very hard-boiled yolks of two eggs, a salt-spoonful of salt, a dessert-spoonful of mustard powder, a tea-spoonful of finely-minced shallot, and a dust of white pepper. Bruise these together thoroughly with the back of a silver spoon. Now, add a little oil, and work your materials to a paste, dropping in the oil patiently by degrees until you get it nice and moist; next throw in the yolks of two raw eggs, and continue your working, adding oil without measure, and judging by your eye when you think you have made enough sauce, for the tarragon vinegar you finally add will not be more than a good table-spoonful. The moment the vinegar is added, the sauce will assume a creamy appearance, and when worked sufficiently, will be ready for the block tin strainer (to get rid of "onion atoms," lumps of egg, etc.,) and then for the table. If made on the plains, early in the afternoon, the sauce-boat should be placed in the ice-box; but, to be successful, mayonnaise sauce ought, if possible, to be made as near the time of service as possible. When cream is used, it takes the place of the oil, but if only a little can be spared, a dessert-spoonful may be added to the sauce I have described with good effect. All mayonnaise sauces should be iced, if only for a few minutes.

The points in this sauce to be noted are, the order in which the various ingredients should be employed, the use of the raw yolks in conjunction with the hard-boiled (they produce the thick creaminess you want), the liberal use of good oil, and the addition last of all, in sparing quantity, of the tarragon vinegar. You do not want an acid sauce at all, remember. English cooks, as a rule, ruin their mayonnaise and salad dressings, by measuring the oil and vinegar they use in equal portions! No artist measures these ingredients.* You might as well expect a painter to tell you the number of grains of the colours he used in painting a picture. You must not omit a little onion, but whilst permitting the flavour "scarce suspected to animate the whole," you must on no account permit the "atoms to lurk within the bowl" - the ladies in Sydney Smith's days were perhaps less critical in the matter of this fragrant bulb, than are our fair enslavers in the present year of grace.

"Tartare sauce" is the same as the above, without the use of hard-boiled eggs : raw yolks alone should be used, and the oil and vinegar should be added in the following proportions; a tea-spoonful of the latter, to two table-spoonfuls of the former, well beaten together, and often times repeated till enough sauce is made.

"Remoulade" is a mayonnaise sauce with chopped gherkins, parsley, chives and capers, added. For chives, try the green stalks of a few young onions. The mustard used must be French, and a drop or two of garlic-vinegar is a sine qua non.

"Ravigote" is also mayonnaise with chopped shallots anchovies, celery, cress, and sweet herbs.

Green remoulade and ravigote are made in the same way, the colour being produced by parsley juice, and spinach-greening.

* Gonffe's calculation represents the quantity of vinegar as barely one-eighth of the oil. - W.

Not long ago I observed in the Queen newspaper a question from a lady who was apparently in great distress about mayonnaise sauce. She complained that she could not get the mixture as thick as she desired, and begged for instruction. Two answers were given the following week: one of them urged the lady to thicken with flour or arrowroot, and the other advocated mashed potato! Now, I need scarcely say that this was a case in which the blind attempted to lead the blind. Mayonnaise and tar-tare sauces should be thickened by beating the oil and raw yolks together perseveringly. With patience the mixture can, in this way, be made to stand as stiffly as thick batter.