Game fragments, poultry, mushrooms, etc., must, on no account, be used in making Espagnole, for such ingredients would impart a distinct flavour to the sauce. The object, remember, is to reserve the flavouring according to the particular sauce we may select.

I will, for example, give you sauce a la Perigueux :- Chop up half the contents of a small bottle of truffles, and toss them awhile in some melted butter at the bottom of a light sauce-pan, add a coffee-cupful of clear gravy, and a glass of Madeira, and simmer for ten minutes; give it a little pepper, a pinch of sugar, and salt, and then slowly stir in half a pint of Espagnole to complete the sauce, and when thoroughly hot, it is ready.

Take now Financiere sauce for, let us say, a ragout of that name:- Choose a nice tender fowl, lightly roast it, and save the choicest fillet meat for your ragout: take the legs, thighs, skin, bones, liver, giblets, scraps, and trimmings, and proceed to make an essence of them thus :- Break up the bones, and, with the remnants aforesaid, make the strongest broth you can, flavoured with an onion, a bit of celery, a spoonful of dried herbs, a sliced carrot, and two or three pepper corns. Reduce it as strong as possible, and then strain. Now, take equal portions of mushrooms and of truffles; cut them up, and toss them in melted butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan, and -when you have worked them well thus, for two or three minutes, add your fowl-jsence, with a glass of sherry, and complete the sauce with your pint of Espagnole. The ragout (which should be garnished with whole button mushrooms, sliced truffles, cocks-combs, sweet-breads, tongue, grated ham, and sip-pets of crisply fried bacon) is merely a careful stew of fowl fillets, in the sauce I have described. As the fillets have been previously cooked, they will merely require gently heating up in the sauce.

It will be observed that the specialties of the two sauces just given are a flavour of truffles and Madeira in Perigueux. and of chicken essence with mushrooms, truffles, and sherry in Financiere.

Bechamel, which I select as the best type of a fundamental white sauce, should be made in this way:- Take the same ingredients that I have detailed for Espagnole, and commence by slicing up the onion, and shaking the rings in an ounce of melted butter at the bottom of the stew-pan; do not let them take colour, but add your meat* and bones at once, and cover them with water, omitting the browning stage : go on now to make a clear consomme; instead of burnt-sugar colouring, add a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar plain, and all the vegetables. If this be carefully prepared and skimmed, you will obtain a pellucid broth which should be strained, and kept ready for use presently. Take a sauce-pan, and melt a quarter of a pound of "cow-brand," or any good preserved butter in it; fry gently in that for ten minutes a sliced carrot and a sliced onion; before they take colour, add two ounces of flour, stir for five minutes, and add by degrees your clear broth, half a pint of cream, a small tinful of mushrooms chopped, salt, and pepper; stir over the fire till boiling, and then permit the sauce to simmer slowly for an hour, taking off all fat that may rise. At the end of the hour, you can strain the Bechamel into a sauce-pan, and place it in the bain-marie. Before using, a gill of cream may be finally stirred into the sauce as you take it from the bain-marie.

* Veal, if procurable, instead of beef. - W.

Veloute is exactly like this omitting the cream when you add the stock, and also the chopped mushrooms : it is therefore less expensive and not quite so rich.

Allemande is veloute flavoured with chicken essence, and chopped mushrooms : it is thickened with yolks of eggs, and no cream is needed in its composition.

With these for your bases, you can make the following rich white sauces:- oyster, lobster, supreme, venitienne, poivrade blanche, rich soubise, champignons blanches, puree de celeri, and other rich white 'purees. In fact all sauces which, in their simple form, are made with sauce blanche, or sauce blonde, may be served in a superior manner by using veloute, or Bechamel as their groundwork.

I have already described the making of chicken, or rather fowl essence: the same principles being observed, you can obtain valuable flavouring gravies from all poultry bones, especially from those of a turkey. The giblets should never be thrown away, for they assist a gravy greatly. In like manner game bones are very valuable.

Essences of mushrooms, of truffles, vegetables, and ham, are obtained by stewing them cut into small pieces in consomme.

A dash of Madeira or sound Marsala is necessary with game essences, while chablis and sauterne give assistance to fish gravies which are used, of course, to improve sauces like creme d'anchois, creme de crevettes, and all fish sauces.

Reduced vinegar, i.e. vinegar boiled until half or more of its quantity has evaporated, and wine similarly reduced. produce valuable flavoring agents Mirepoix is a strong broth made front meat and vegetables, flavoured with wine and sweet herbs, and strained, but not thickened. It is used a- a flavouring medium.

D'Uxelles, or fines herbes, is composed as follows :- Chop up six ounces of fresh mushrooms, six ounces of fresh parsley, and two ounces of shallot, put the mince into a stew-pan with two ounces of fresh butter and a seasoning of salt and black pepper; fry on a brisk fire for five minutes, and put the mixture in a jar for use as required. D'Uxelles sauce is made by adding a table-spoonful of this preparation to half a pint of Espagnole sauce. This should be made when mushrooms are procurable during the rains, it will be found most useful as a flavoring and finishing agent.

Let us suppose that you have made a sauce in every way satisfactorily, but find that it is scarcely thick enough. You must then employ a liaison or thickening to correct the error. Liaison for a white sauce may be made of flour, and a little milk and water, or white stock, like sauce blanche, or sauce blonde only a little thicker. For a brown sauce the same, with brown gravy. In either case the liaison mixed separately is stirred through a strainer into the sauce off the fire : when this has been done, the saucepan is replaced on the fire and stirred until the desired thickness is obtained.

Yolks of eggs are also used for liaison: they must be beaten up with a little hot-water, or stock, and added to the sauce off the fire, the thickening being very carefully conducted afterwards over a low fire as in custard-making. The sauce must be allowed to cool for two or three minutes before the egg thickening is put into it. This thickening is used in poulette sauce for fricassees and certain soups.

I have now, I think, given you a sketch of sauce-making in its various stages. Details for nearly every standard sauce not at present described, will be found in my menus.