White sauce

“ It's used in cream soups, and it's the cream part of creamed vegetables and meat and fish, and then there is a thicker white sauce that is used to bind croquettes—that is, hold the ingredients together. There are really four kinds of white sauces and they are very simple to make. I think everyone should know the right way to make them, for they are useful in preparing so many good things. ”

“ The sauce is either white sauce, plain or varied, or a cream soup. The starch may be noodles, spaghetti, macaroni, crackers, potatoes or potato chips, bread crumbs or a cereal. The protein food may be meat, fish, poultry or cheese. Often the vegetables and protein foods are leftovers which are cleverly combined to appear dressed-up in a new attire.
For the majority of casserole dishes, a medium white sauce is the right consistency—the proportions being 2 tablespoons butter to 2 tablespoons flour, 1⁄2 teaspoon salt, few grains pepper, and 1 cup milk. ”

“ Most sauces must be stirred continually while on the fire, and especially white sauces, such as Béchamel, Béchamel with cream or cream sauce, and white sauce.
It is necessary to stir all sauces now and then, to prevent the forming of a kind of skin on the surface.
The onions, shallots, garlics, and vinegar, used in sharp sauces, may be prepared as described for piquante sauce.
Sauces can always be made to suit the taste. A thousand can be made as well as a hundred, by merely adding or subtracting one or more of the compounds, or by proceeding differently. ”

“ As you become more expert, you can develop your own variations.
White sauce 1 cup
Melt butter, margarine, or other fat in heavy saucepan. Blend in flour until smooth. Add salt. Add milk slowly, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
Thin white sauce is used in cream soup, gravy, and in creamed and scalloped vegetables, eggs, fish, and meat.
Medium white sauce is also used in gravy and in creamed and scalloped vegetables, eggs, fish, and meat. ”

“ The next means after larding in what may be called natural garnishing is in the employment of gravies and sauces. No article should ever swim in sauce, but a little can be used with good effect on many dishes. A venison steak wet with a currant jelly sauce, and just enough of the sauce poured on the bottom of the platter to color it, gives a glaze and juicy look to the steak which improves its appearance. A very little tomato sauce under breaded veal chops or croquettes gives color and emphasis to the dish. White sauce poured over boiled dishes gives greater whiteness and often covers defects. ”

“ It can also be served “à la poulette,” by putting a pint of white sauce in a stewpan; you have peeled and cooked about fifty button onions in white broth, to which you have added a little sugar and butter, and a few mushrooms; add the broth, onions, and sauce together, and when on the point of boiling, add a liaison of two yolks of eggs and the juice of a lemon; stir it well round; it ought to be the thickness of cream sauce; pour over the head and serve. ”

“ Ordinary brown sauce, like ordinary white, is often made without stock—simply an ounce of flour, one of butter, browned together, and half a pint of boiling water added, then boiled till thick and smooth. But it may be safely said that in high-class dark sauces water should play no part; its place must be taken by stock of good quality, which is often enriched by reducing or adding glaze. ”

“ Tomato Sauce.—Melt an ounce of butter, and slice one or two tomatoes thinly into it, add one or two shallots. Let these stew till quite soft, then press through a wire sieve. Add a little more butter to this purée, plenty of salt and pepper, and a spoonful of vinegar. Make thoroughly hot before serving.
Regard should always be had to contrast of colour in garnishing all dishes. Where the fish is masked in white sauce, the introduction of something red amongst the green garnishing is a relief to the eye. ”

“ The only advantage in a private family of making it thus thick is when, perhaps, two or three sauces are needed for a dinner; for example, a plain white sauce for a vegetable, caper, lobster, or cardinal for other purposes, and perhaps poulette, d’Uxelles, or other pale sauce for an entrée; but when one sauce only is required, it is best to make that one from the beginning ”

“ Hygienists and health-reformers should not permit white flour to enter their houses, unless it is to make bill-stickers' paste or some like stuff. Toothless children must not be given any food but milk and water until they cut at least two teeth.
Every kind of cookery can be done with wholemeal flour. In making ordinary white sauce or vegetable sauce, this is how we make it; Chop fine some onion or parsley; boil in a small quantity of water, stir in wholemeal flour and milk, add a little pepper and salt, thin with hot water, and thus produce a sauce that helps down vegetables and potatoes. ”

“ Make a white sauce of 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, and 1 cup milk. Mix fish with sauce adding salt, pepper, paprika, chopped green pepper, strips of pimiento, and a little chopped onion, as desired. ”

“ Turbans.—Ornamental entrées made of game, poultry, or fish, and forcemeats.
Velouté.—The white sauce used as a basis for so many others. It is rich double stock, made with veal, poultry, ham, vegetables, etc., and thickened with flour and butter. It must always be white. ”

“ To this basis are added the flavor and seasoning suited to the dish with which it is to be served. For meats, it is the flavor of meat, vegetables, spices, and herbs; for entrées, it is the flavor of meat or chicken, and cream; for vegetables it is butter, cream or milk, and eggs; for fish, the same, with a little lemon-juice or vinegar to give piquancy. The basis of pudding sauces is butter and sugar.
Uses and variations of the white sauce. Sauces are easily made, and greatly improve the dishes they accompany. ”

“ In making a brown sauce we put a little butter or olive oil in the frying-pan; let it bubble and sputter, dredge in Allinson wholemeal flour, stir it round with a knife until browned, add boiling water, pepper, salt, a little ketchup, and you then have a nice brown sauce for many dishes. If we wish to make it very tasty we fry a finely chopped onion first and add that to it. White sweet sauce is made from wholemeal flour, milk, sugar, and a little cinnamon, cloves, lemon juice, vanilla, or other flavouring. ”

“ Serves 6.
7 CARNATION MILK MAKES RICH SAUCES
Sauces For Fish and Vegetables
How tempting a most ordinary food is made by the addition of an attractive sauce—one that is smooth and creamy, with delicate flavors well blended! The generous use of a variety of sauces is, to be sure, one of the secrets of French cookery. Sauces containing liberal amounts of milk not only stimulate the appetite and cause digestive juices to flow more freely but also are very nutritious.
WHITE SAUCE
1⁄2 tsp. Salt
few grains Pepper
1⁄2 cup Carnation
1⁄2 cup Water
Melt fat in top part of double boiler ”

“ We wish our barley-cakes should white appear,
And yet we make for them a dark black sauce,
And stain pure colour with a deeper dye.
Then we prepare to drink down melted snow;
Yet if our fish be cold, we storm and rave.
Sour or acid wine we scorn and loathe,
Yet are delighted with sharp caper sauce.
And so, as many wiser men have said,
Not to be born at all is best for man;
The next best thing, to die as soon as possible. ”

“ It has been explained before, but I repeat it here, that there must never be too much sauce, however good, to any dish, and that the consistency is most important: it must be thick enough to mask a spoon, yet run from it freely. Nothing can be worse than a dab of white mush being served as sauce, unless it be a quantity of thin, milky soup floating on every plate. This is where the happy medium must be struck. It is perfectly easy to give exact proportions to produce certain degrees of thickness, and this has been done in the chapters on sauces ”

“ One-half cup of medium cream sauce,
Two tablespoons of white wine vinegar,
Yolk of one egg,
One teaspoon of mustard,
One teaspoon of salt,
One-half teaspoon of paprika.
Beat thoroughly to mix and then heat to the boiling point.
In no other part of cookery does the skill of the cook show to advantage as in the way in which the various sauces are prepared and served. To make a perfect sauce is an art in cooking. Many plain foods, as well as the use of leftovers, may, by the addition of a good sauce, be turned into palatable and attractive dishes. ”

“ To the above, many cooks add lemon-juice and Cayenne.
Obs. Foreigners make this sauce with good brown sauce (No. 329) , or white sauce (No. 364) ; instead of melted butter, add to it catchup, soy, and some of their flavoured vinegars, (as elder or tarragon) , pepper and fine spice, sweet herbs, capers, eschalots, &c. They serve it with most roasted meats.
[233] N.B. Keep your anchovies well covered; first tie down your jar with bladder moistened with vinegar, and then wiped dry; tie leather over that: when you open a jar, moisten the bladder, and it will come off easily ”

“ A pickled walnut chopped, or a gherkin or two, go admirably with mutton or pork chops. In short, this is just where71 imagination and brains will tell in cooking, and little essays of invention may be tried with profit. But beware of trying too much; make yourself perfect in one thing before venturing on another.
Espagnole, or brown sauce, is simply a rich stock well flavored with vegetables and herbs, and thickened with a piece of roux or with brown flour.
White Sauce is one of those things we rarely find perfectly made; bad, it is the ne plus ultra of badness ”

“ Sauce Hollandaise.—This is really a warm mayonnaise, using butter instead of vegetable oil. It is the best sauce for serving with salmon or other boiled fish if you desire it hot. It requires a quarter pound butter, half a lemon, the yolks of two eggs, a little salt and a half teaspoonful white pepper. The secret of its successful making is to preserve an even temperature. The sauce should not approach the boiling point, as the eggs would cook and the sauce curdle. Put the eggs in a small saucepan and add the butter, gradually stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. ”

“ Chestnut Sauce.—Proceed as in making chestnut soup, using as little liquid as possible, so as to make the sauce thick.
Cinnamon Sauce.—The simplest way of making cinnamon sauce is to sweeten some butter sauce with some white sugar, and then add a few drops of essence of cinnamon. The sauce can be coloured pink with a little cochineal. A little wine is an improvement. The sauce can also be made by breaking up and boiling a stick of cinnamon in some water, and then using the water to make some butter sauce. ”

“ To make mayonnaise sauce, first rinse the basin in very cold water, and make the sauce in a cool place, if possible keeping the basin on ice while you mix the sauce. See that the oil is perfectly good, and add it drop by drop. This is important, otherwise the sauce may curdle. Use the very best vinegar, as a very little of this will suffice and prevent the sauce from becoming thin. Put the yolks of 2 raw eggs in a basin, and add to them a pinch of salt, 1⁄2 a saltspoonful of white pepper, and 1⁄2 a teaspoonful of French and English mustard in the dry state, and a tiny pinch of cayenne. ”

“ Or the chutney can be simply chopped up fine and added to the butter sauce without rubbing through the wire sieve.
Mayonnaise Sauce.—This is the most delicious of all cold sauces. It is composed entirely of raw yolk of egg and oil, flavoured with a dash of vinegar. When made properly it should be of the consistency of butter in summer time. Many women cooks labour under the delusion that it requires the addition of cream. Mayonnaise sauce is made as follows:— Break an egg and separate the yolk from the white, and place the yolk at the bottom of a large basin. ”

“ Put a quarter of a pint of melted aspic or savoury jelly upon ice in a stew-pan, which keep whisking until becoming a white froth, then add half a pint of salad oil and six spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar, by degrees—first oil and then vinegar, continually whisking until it forms a white smooth sauce, to all appearance like a cream; season with half a teaspoonful of salt, a quarter ditto of pepper, and a little sugar ”

“ Reduce the vinegar by two-thirds; add one pint of white wine sauce (No. 111) ; boil for a few minutes; rub through a tammy, and finish the sauce with a sufficient quantity of Herb Juice (No. 183) and one teaspoonful of chopped chervil and tarragon. This sauce accompanies various fish.
108—VILLEROY SAUCE
Put into a sautépan one pint of Allemande Sauce to which have been added two tablespoonfuls of truffle essence and as much ham essence.
Reduce on an open fire and constantly stir until the sauce is sufficiently stiff to coat immersed solids thickly. ”

“ Drain it well on the fish-plate as it is lifted out, and dish it on a napkin, the white side upwards, and serve it quickly with anchovy, shrimp, or lobster sauce. It may also be sent to table thickly covered with the Cream Fish Sauce, Caper Fish Sauce, or Lady’s Sauce, of Chapter VI.; though this is a mode of service less to be recommended, as the sauce cools more speedily when spread over the surface of the fish: it is, however, the continental fashion, and will therefore find more favour with some persons. ”