68. Sauce A La Gasconne

Take a small spoonful of French capers, with about an ounce of truffles, and chop each separately, very fine; put these into a smalt stewpan, together with one clove of garlic, a tablespoonful of salad oil, some pepper, and nutmeg; fry them lightly on the stove-fire for two or three minutes ; moisten with a glass of French white wine, set the whole to boil on the stove-fire for three minutes; then add a small ladleful of white Veloute sauce, a bay-leaf, and a sprig of thyme; stir the sauce on the fire till it boils, then set it by the side to continue boiling gently; skim it well, and after having added another glass of wine, reduce the sauce and thicken it with a leason of three yelks; pour the sauce into a bain-marie, and just before using it mix in a spoonful of chopped and blanched chives, parsley, and tarragon, a pat of anchovy butter, and some lemon-juice.

69. Cheveeuil Or Piquante Sauce For Roebuck

Chop four ounces of lean ham, and put it into a stewpan, with a good pinch of minionette pepper, some thyme, and a bay-leaf, a few green onions, and some sprigs of parsley; moisten with a gill of French vinegar, boil the whole on the fire till reduced to half its original quantity, and then add a small ladleful of brown sauce, a small tumblerful of red wine, and a little consomme ; stir this on the fire till it boils, and after having cleared and skimmed it in the usual manner, reduce it to a proper consistency, and finish by adding a spoonful of red currant-jelly and the juice of an orange.

70. Butter Sauce

Butter sauce, or, as it is more often absurdly called, melted butter, is the foundation of the whole of the following sauces, and requires very great care in its preparation. Though simple, it is nevertheless a very useful and agreeable sauce when properly made; so far from this being usually the case, it is too generally left to assistants to prepare as an insignificant matter; the result is therefore seldom satisfactory.

When a large quantity of butter sauce is required, put four ounces of fresh butter into a middle-sized stewpan, with some grated nutmeg and minionette pepper; to these add four ounces of sifted flour; knead the whole well together, and moisten with a pint of cold spring water; stir the sauce on the fire till it boils, and after having kept it gently boiling for twenty minutes (observing that it be not thicker than the consistence of common white sauce), proceed to mix in one pound and a half of sweet fresh butter, taking care to stir the sauce quickly the whole time of the operation. Should it appear to turn oily, add now and then a spoonful of cold spring water; finish with the juice of half a lemon, and salt to palate; then pass the sauce through a tammy into a large bain-marie for use. 3

Note. - This kind of sauce should not be made above twenty minutes before it is wanted, as, from its particular delicacy, when exposed much longer to heat of any kind, it is liable to be decomposed; should this occur, it may be remedied by simply adding a little cold spring water in winter, or a small piece of clean ice in summer; and then working the sauce briskly together with a spoon. This method is efficacious in restoring any sort of butter sauce, when turned or become oily, to its original smoothness.