The stock added to this should have had a slice of ham or smoked lean bacon, some green onions, a little sherry, and a good bouquet boiled with it to flavour or "perfume" it, and the whole is boiled together till the sauce has reduced a fourth part, both to intensify its flavour and to give it more substance. This point is one not sufficiently attended to by British cooks, who resort to the traditional "bit of butter rubbed in flour," and the stock adjuncts of the cruet stand, give their sauces the body and savour of the properly made foreign ones, thus meeting with the fate of those too ignorant or careless to start their work in the right way, a proceeding that invariably brings its own punishment in the shape of extra trouble.

Having mastered these details, the cook will soon find that veloute, or velvet sauce (as its name would run in English, from the smoothness to which it is brought when properly made), will be the foundation of such white sauces as need not be absolutely snow white; such as allemande (veloute enriched at the last with egg yolks lightly beaten up with a little new milk or cream, and made with stock rather fully flavoured by boiling mushrooms or their trimmings in it); Indienne (veloute finished off at the last with a good piece of fresh butter rubbed up with as much good curry powder as it will take up, just allowed to boil and then finished off with the egg and milk liaison); pascaline (a good sauce for hashed lamb by the way, made by adding a gill of colourless stock made from the lamb bones, to three-quarters of a pint of veloute, boiling the whole down a fourth part with some chopped shallot and mushroom peelings, then straining or tammying it, and finishing with the egg and milk liaison, lemon juice, and finely minced parsley and mushrooms), etc.; whereas the milk white bechamel would be the foundation of sauce a la creme, or blanquette, when a good slice of lean ham and a bay leaf are simmered for twenty to thirty minutes in about three-quarters of a pint of bechamel till reduced a fourth, then tammied or sieved, and finished off like the pascaline which has, however, not such a delicate white tinge - or any other dainty sauce that must be of pure white colour.

In the same way, brown sauce would be used as the basis of ordinary brown sauces, such as tomato, Bretonne (a brown onion sauce), Chutney sauce, etc., Espagnole being reserved for such highly flavoured dishes as involve wine, truffles, etc, in their composition, such as Perigueux, Madere, or other very high class and expensive sauces.

One more word must be said anent these same sauces, and that is that in first-class cookery certain appellations have certain very definite meanings, to such a degree, in fact, that a skilled connoisseur could distinguish blindfold between the different sauces. So please observe that if you choose to christen your dishes by high sounding names, such names will lead every connoisseur before whom you may put them, to expect very definite results, and to resent accordingly any deception in the matter, however unconscious on your part. A striking example of this is to be found in a dish more often seen mentioned on menus than produced on the table, namely, supreme de volaille. For this the uncooked breasts of fowls must be used, whilst for the sauce you require a very carefully made veloute, produced from delicately flavoured chicken stock, which is thickened at the last with rich cream, a dash of lemon juice, and any addenda in harmony with the garnish from which it takes its name. Directions for this dish will be given amongst the recipes later on, so it need not be insisted on further, save to remark that no one knowing anything of cookery will accept contentedly a fricassee of chicken, however good of its kind, as a substitute for the supreme mentioned on the menu! Though under its proper name those same critics would very likely have praised it warmly.

So much for hot sauces. Next the cold sauces, required for chaufroix and other cold dishes, must be considered. These in the present day the average "good cook" generally produces by mixing to a given proportion of any sauce required a certain amount of aspic jelly in a state of liquefaction; the two are then boiled - or not boiled, as the cook fancies - till somewhat reduced, when they are poured over the article to be covered or "masked " (as it is technically termed), when just on the point of setting. Now this certainly produces a very nice liquid for masking purposes - especially when the reduction has been attended to - but for high class cookery such a sauce tastes too strongly of vinegar to be judged altogether correct by the gourmet. If you are giving a dish, say, of quails en aspic, then by all means use this aspic-stiffened sauce; but where it is simply a case of a chaufroix, the sauce chosen should be thickened by reduction or boiling-in till stiff enough to coat any piece of meat, etc., by its own density.

This is the truly correct method as practised by first rate chefs, who do not need to consider time, expense, or work; but where these have to be taken into account, even first rate chefs nowadays admit the addition of a little isinglass or the pure leaf gelatine (such as Mrs. A. B. Marshall's) to the coating liquid, to ensure its adhering evenly and smoothly. About ½oz. to ¾oz. of the gelatine to the pint of sauce will be sufficient, according to the density to which you have reduced the latter. This addition, though giving body and adhesiveness to the sauce does not affect its flavour as would aspic, which always, from its nature, must impart a strong acid taste to whatever it is mixed with. So I would ask my readers to understand that unless the word aspic is mentioned in connection with any dish where chaufroix is named, it implies that the sauce - whatever its nature - is simply stiffened with from ½oz. to ¾oz. of Mrs. A. B. Marshall's leaf gelatine to the pint of sauce. This gelatine being added at the last, just before the sauce is tammied or sieved, and allowed to dissolve thoroughly in it.