This is the most important of all the sauces with which we have to deal. The great mistake made by the vast majority of women cooks is that they will use milk. They thicken a pint of milk with a little butter and flour, and then call it melted butter, and, as a rule, send to table enough for twenty persons when only two or three are dining. As butter sauce will be served with the majority of vegetables, we would call the attention of vegetarians to the fact that, as a rule, ordinary cookery-books take for granted that vegetables will be served with the meat. When therefore vegetables are served separately, and are intended to be eaten with bread as a course by themselves, some alteration must be made in the method of serving them. Again, vegetarians should bear in mind that, except in cases where poverty necessitates rigid economy, a certain amount of butter may be considered almost a necessity, should the meal be wished to be both wholesome and nourishing. Francatelli, who was chef-de-cuisine to the Earl of Chesterfield, and was also chief cook to the Queen and chef at the Reform Club, and afterwards manager of the Freemasons' Tavern, in writing on this subject observes:--"Butter sauce, or, as it is more 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 stew-pan, 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 consistency 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." We have quoted the recipe of the late M. Francatelli in full, as we believe it is necessary to refer to some very great authority in order to knock out the prejudice from the minds of many who think that they not only can themselves cook, but teach others, but who are bound in the chains of prejudice and tradition which, too often, in the most simple recipes, lead them to follow in the footsteps of their grandmothers. Real butter sauce can be made as follows, on a small scale:--Take a claret-glass of water, and about a small teaspoonful of flour mixed with rather more than the same quantity of butter, and mix this in the water over the fire till it is of the consistency of very thin gruel. If it is thicker than this, add a little more water. Now take any quantity of butter, and gradually dissolve as much as you can in this thin gruel, adding say half an ounce at a time, till the sauce becomes a rich oily compound. After a time, if you add too much butter, the sauce will curdle and turn oily, as described by Francatelli. Of course, in everyday life it is not necessary to have the butter sauce so rich, still it is simply ridiculous to thicken a pint of milk, or a pint of water, with a little butter and flour, and then call it butter sauce or melted butter. Suppose we have a large white cabbage, like those met with in the West of England, and we are going to make a meal off it in conjunction with plenty of bread. Suppose the cabbage is sufficiently large for six persons, surely half a pound of butter is not an excessive quantity to use in making butter sauce for the purpose. Yet prejudice is such that if we use half a pound of butter for the butter sauce, housekeepers consider it extravagant. On the other hand, if the butter were placed on the table, and the six persons helped themselves, and ate bread and butter with the cabbage and finished the half-pound, it would not be considered extravagant. Of course, this is simply prejudice. A simple way of making melted butter is as follows:--Take half a pint of cold water, put it in a saucepan, and add sufficient white roux, or butter and flour mixed, till it is of the consistency of thin gruel. Now gradually dissolve in this, adding a little piece at a time, as much butter as you can afford; add a suspicion of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt, and a few drops of lemon-juice from a fresh lemon, if you have one in use.
1 dozen leeks, 1-1/2 pints of milk, 1 lb. of potatoes, 1 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and the juice of a lemon (this last may be omitted if not liked). Prepare the leeks as in the previous recipe, cut them into pieces about an inch long. Peel and wash the potatoes and cut them into dice. Set the vegetables over the fire with 1 quart of water, and cook them until tender, which will be in about 1 hour. When soft rub all through a sieve and return the soup to the saucepan. Add the milk, butter, and seasoning, boil up, and add the lemon juice just before serving. Should the soup be too thick add a little hot water. Serve with Allinson plain rusks.
Remove the stalks from 1 lb. of fresh strawberries, place them in a glass dish and scatter over 2 tablespoonfuls of pounded sugar; prepare 1 pint of custard with Allinson custard powder according to recipe given above, and while still hot pour carefully over the fruit, set aside to cool, and just before serving (which must not be until the custard has become quite cold) garnish the top with a few fine strawberries.
Scrub and wash as many carrots as are required. Cook them in a little water or steam them until quite tender, then slice them and place them in a saucepan. Make a white sauce as directed in the recipe for "Onions and white sauce," and stir into it a handful of finely-chopped parsley. Pour the sauce over the carrots, and let them simmer for ten minutes. Serve very hot with baked potatoes.
This is a German recipe. Take half a dozen good-sized apples, peel them and remove the core, and boil them in a quart of water with two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs; add the juice of a lemon, and flavour it with rather less than a quarter of an ounce of powdered cinnamon; sweeten the soup with lump sugar, previously having rubbed six lumps on the outside of the lemon.
3 lbs of Spanish onions, 3 breakfastcupfuls of Allinson breadcrumbs, 3 eggs, 3 oz. of butter, 1 teaspoonful of mixed herbs, 1 tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, pepper and salt to taste, and a little hot milk. Stew the onions in 2 oz. of butter, adding the herbs and seasoning. Prepare the breadcrumbs in the same way as for "Queen's Onion and Apple Pie," place the onions and breadcrumbs in layers as in the previous recipe, and bake 1 hour.
6 large potatoes, 1 Spanish onion, 1 large apple, 1 oz. of butter, 1/2 teaspoonful of allspice, 1 dessertspoonful of sugar, pepper and salt to taste, a cupful of breadcrumbs. Chop the onion and apple fine and stew them (without water) with the butter, allspice, sugar, and seasoning. When quite tender sift in enough breadcrumbs to make a fairly stiff paste. Scoop the potatoes out as in previous recipe, fill them with the mixture, tie, bake the potatoes till tender, and serve them with brown sauce and vegetables.
Take fifteen fresh eggs, break the yolks into one pan and the whites into another. Beat the yolks with a pound of sugar pounded very fine, scrape the peel of a lemon with a lump of sugar, dry that and pound it fine also; then throw into it the yolks, and work the eggs and sugar till they are of a whitish colour. Next whip the whites well and mix them with the yolks. Now sift half a pound of flour of potatoes through a silk sieve over the eggs and sugar. Have some paper cases ready, which lay on a plafond with some paper underneath. Fill the cases, but not too full; glaze the contents with some rather coarse sugar, and bake the whole in an oven moderately heated.
Like most soups that are either sweet or sour, this is a German recipe. Put a piece of butter, the size of a large egg, into a saucepan. Let it melt, then mix it with a tablespoonful of flour, and stir smoothly until it is lightly browned. Add gradually two pints of water, a pound of black cherries, picked and washed, and a few cloves. Let these boil until the fruit is quite tender, then press the whole through a sieve. After straining, add a little port, if wine is allowed--but the soup will be very nice without this addition--half a teaspoonful of the kernels, blanched and bruised, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a few whole cherries. Let the soup boil again until the cherries are tender, and pour all into a tureen over toasted sippets, sponge-cakes, or macaroons.
1/2 lb. of ground sweet almonds, 1 oz. of cocoa, 1 dessertspoonful of vanilla essence, 1/2 lb. of castor sugar, the white of 4 eggs. Whip the white of the eggs to a stiff froth, add the sugar, cocoa, vanilla, and almond meal, and proceed as in the previous recipe.
