Sauces

Sauces are a necessary addition to cooked foods, especially in cold weather. The proper utensils used for sauce making are wooden spoons and flat, round bottomed saucepans.

Good fresh butter, oil and dry flour are necessary to make nutritious sauces. Flour for thickening should boil at least ten minutes. If the flour is to be cooked with fat before the liquid is added, only a few minutes of boiling is necessary, for the reason that fat, when boiled, reaches a higher temperature than water or milk. Mixed flour is preferable to pure wheat flour. Sauces prepared from soup stock, vegetables or fruits and gelatines are a better addition to meats than brown gravies, which are prepared from the small amount of juice which is extracted from the meat by roasting. Sauces prepared in the latter way are too rich as a food if eaten in combination with meat; they are a perfect meal by themselves if eaten in combination with whole wheat bread and greens.

Butter Sauce. No. 1

Melt three tablespoonsful of butter, or half butter and half oil, mix with two tablespoonsful of flour over the fire, and boil for a few seconds. Then add gradually a pint of boiling water or soup stock or hot whey, while stirring it. Boil a few minutes. Flavor with salt, onion, chopped parsley, celery, nutmeg, bay leaves, anchovy-paste, lemon, chopped salted meat or whatever flavor is desired. Serve with meat or fish.

Butter Sauce. No. 2

Prepare like the foregoing. Use milk in place of water, or soup stock.

Tomato Sauce

Prepare as number one, using strained tomato juice instead of water. Serve with meat, fish, or grains.

Caper Sauce

Prepare as number one, add capers and lemon before serving.

Horse Radish Sauce

Prepare as number one, adding dried currants and grated horse radish at the last minute. This is excellent with boiled beef or fish.

Mustard Sauce

Prepare as number one, adding two to four teaspoonsful of prepared mustard a minute before serving. Serve with hot or cold boiled beef, or with hard boiled eggs.

Mushroom Sauce

Prepare as number one, add the desired amount of dried mushrooms, which have been soaked in water for several hours, and boil for ten minutes. Serve with poultry, game or rice.

Cream Sauce. No. 1

Prepare as number one; remove from the fire, add a few tablespoonsful of hot cream, or the yolk of one or several eggs, which have been diluted and stirred with a little cold water. Flavor with mace, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, lemon, or vanilla. Serve with macaroni, boiled fish, plum pudding, French toast, chipped beef, salted meat or boiled onions.

Cream Sauce. No. 2

Thicken some water or soup stock with flour. Cook ten minutes, and add hot cream and flavoring.

Almond Sauce

Prepare with hot water as directed for butter sauce. Stir smooth a tablespoonful of almond butter or paste with two tablespoonsful of cold water, remove the sauce from the fire, add the almond butter and stir thoroughly. Serve with baked apples, rice, or bread.