Beat up the yolk of an egg with a table-spoonful of cream, and add in the same way.

Throw in just before serving a table-spoonful of minced parsley, fennel, or chopped capers, and you will have :- sauce au persil, sauce au fenouil, or sauce aux capres.

Stir into it after it is made, a dessert-spoonful (or more if liked) of anchovy, Harvey, ketchup, or any sauce you fancy.

For sauce aux fines herbes, flavour a pint of milk by boiling up in it a minced Bombay onion, a tiny bit of garlic, and a handful of parsley: when well flavoured, strain the milk through muslin and stir it by degrees into a saucepan in which a couple of ounces of butter and two of flour have been mixed; thicken gently by bringing the mixture to the boil, strain, and add, just before serving, a tablespoonful of minced curled parsley, a dessert-spoonful of chopped garden cress, and half one of chopped green stem of spring onion. A squeeze of a lime may be judiciously added to this sauce.

Fillets of pomfret, or any fish that you can fillet nicely, stewed gently in milk thus flavoured, with the same thickened and poured over them when done, are excellent.

Small rings of sliced gherkins added to plain melted butter form the sauce aux cornichons you remember abroad; a tea-spoonful of tarragon vinegar should accompany the rings.

Melted butter for sweet entremets such as cabinet pudding, et hoc genus omne, should be made exactly in the same way as sauce blanche, with sugar instead of salt, with milk, or milk and water, and an egg beaten up in brandy, sherry, or liqueur.

By adding strong broth or stock to the butter and flour, instead of milk and water as in sauce blanche, you produce sauce blonde which forms the basis of several useful sauces.

Maitre d'hotel is simply sauce blonde with a bountiful supply of finely minced parsley, a half pinch of spiced pepper, finished off the fire with the yolk of an egg, and a squeeze of lime juice.

Mincing parsley requires attention. If done when the leaves are wet, the pieces will all stick together, and much of the juice will be lost. Parsley must be washed and then carefully dried in a cloth, after which it can be chopped as finely as possible.

Maitre d'hotel butter, I may add par parenthese is made thus :- To two ounces of iced fresh butter, add the juice of one lime, a dessert-spoonful of chopped parsley free from moisture, a little white pepper, and a pinch of salt. Form it with your butter bat, and set it in the ice box. A nice juicy, grilled chop, or a little grilled fillet of beef, served with a piece of maitre d'hotel butter melting over it, is a French method of captivating the appetite.

Sauce a la poulette is worthy of distinction among ordinary white sauces. Its chief points are: first, that it is thickened with the yolks of eggs instead of flour; secondly, that it is garnished with button mushrooms. It is a creamy looking sauce the colour of a rich custard. Make an ordinary thin sauce blonde with one pint of chicken broth, one ounce of butter, one ounce of flour, pepper and salt to taste: stir well for a quarter of an hour, and it will be a thin white sauce: then add en bain-marie one by one the strained and well beaten yolks of three eggs, finish off with a pat of butter, and a couple of table-spoonfuls of chopped mushrooms.

The pulp of some large sweet onions that have been simmered in milk till tender, and passed through the sieve, when worked into sauce blonde, with a spoonful of cream for high days and holidays, gives you sauce soubise.

Equal portions of boiled carrot, French beans, turnip or knolkhol, cut into small dice, with a few peas, asparagus points, and haricot beans, and gently heated in sauce blonde, form that charming assistance to a dish of grilled cutlets, or any plain entree, called macedoine de legumes. Be careful not to mash the vegetables, so do not overboil them in the first instance.*

Sauce Milanaise is a delicious variation of sauce soubise. Cut up two parboiled Bombay onions, and put them into a sauce-pan with an ounce of butter, a pinch of sugar, and a salt-spoonful of salt; add a table-spoonful of previously boiled rice, or pearl barley, and moisten with a breakfastcupful of broth; let them cook slowly, and when the onions are done, add a table-spoonful of finely grated mild cheese (Parmesan for choice), stir the mixture, pass it through a sieve, and mingle it with half a pint of rich sauce blonde, or - for your birthday, wedding day, or the christening day of your first baby - with boiling cream.

* Any four of these vegetables are enough for a macedoine. - W.

There is no sauce more popular with judges of good food than Hollandaise; in perfection it is a grand sauce, and not very easy to make. In its homely form it may be described as sauce blanche, to which a few yolks of eggs have been added, and a squeeze of lime juice. In its more elaborate treatment, it becomes a custard of yolks of eggs water, vinegar or lime juice, and butter. Some are in favour of vinegar, others prefer lime juice, which they work thus : Beat up the yolks of three eggs in a little water in which a salt-spoonful of pounded allspice has been dissolved, add salt to taste, and about three ounces of fresh butter. Put this mixture into a small sauce-pan, and plunge it into a bain-marie, or stew-pan large enough to receive it, full of boiling water : steam your mixture in this way till it thickens, and stir in your lime juice to finish with.

Gouffe's recipe may be condensed in this way :- reduce two table-spoonfuls of vinegar on the fire with a little salt and pepper added to it, till about a tea-spoonful remains :- strain, and add to it two table-spoonfuls of water, and two yolks of eggs; put this on the fire and heat it thoroughly, stirring it well with a wooden spoon, and add four ounces of butter ounce by ounce by degrees, with a little water now and then to prevent its curdling. This process had better be carried out in a bain-marie, for you thus obtain the amount of gentle heat which is necessary to preserve the sauce in a velvety condition without risk of any kind.

Those capital compositions mayonnaise, tartare, remoulade, ravigote, etc, are better known as cold sauces, but there are hot forms of preparing tartare and the two last named not often presented. They are descended from sauce piquante which is simply made in this way :-

Fry in two ounces of melted butter an ounce of minced onion with an ounce of chopped carrot, a dessert-spoonful of parsley, one of garden cress, and one clove of garlic. When of a golden hue, add equal parts (claret-glass each) of vinegar, and water, or broth and vinegar, a tea-spoonful of salt, and one of sugar, strain, and serve hot. Some chopped truffles, gherkins, capers, or mushrooms may be added with good effect, and a spoonful of ketchup, or Harvey, is often given to it as a finishing touch. This sauce is not thickened.

For hot tartare, add a large spoonful of mustard to the above, and use tarragon vinegar.

For ravigote, you thicken with a little flour, and add a very little white wine, and minced shallots with some lime-juice instead of vinegar.

For remoulade, use neither lime nor wine, but incorporate with your frying onions and green herbs, a table-spoonful of salad oil, and add a dessert-spoonful of French mustard to finish with.

Sauce poivrade (maigre) is made like sauce piquante, with this exception, that after the straining, you thicken the liquor with butter and flour, it may be served either white or brown as you may desire. If you want it white, the onions must not be allowed to take colour in the frying stage.

Gouffe's brown poivrade is enriched with Espagnole, and his poivrade blanche with veloute. But these are first class sauces, of which more anon.

Sauce Robert belongs to this family :- Chop up a fine sweet onion, throw the mince into a sauce-pan with an ounce of butter. Let it take colour, then add an ounce of flour by degrees, and when that has been well worked, half a pint of gravy, pepper and salt at discretion, and a pinch of sugar. When thoroughly mixed, and piping hot, pass the sauce through the tin strainer, catching up all lumps, and, at the last moment, stir in a table-spoonful of vinegar, and one of mixed mustard. Excellent with pork, veal, duck, and goose.

Mustard sauce is made in this way :- Melt a couple of ounces of butter in a small sauce-pan, blend with it a dessert-spoonful of flour, and a heaped up tea-spoonful of French mustard with a pinch of salt : when thoroughly mixed, add half a pint of broth or water : let it come to the boil, then strain through the pointed strainer into a hot sauce-boat. If Durham mustard is used, a little vinegar must be added.

These sharp relishes go well with fish, and, as a change, are welcome with cutlets, etc.