Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Oyster Sauce. — Put fifty oysters, with a small quantity of their liquor, in a saucepan ; stew them very slowly; add 4 ozs. of good butter rolled in flour, four blades of mace, and half a pint of sweet cream; beat up the yolk of one egg, and add just as the sauce is about to boil ; stir one way until everything is well mixed. Prepare this sauce about twenty minutes before it is to be served, as it is very apt to curdle if kept a moment too long upon the fire. Pepper Sauce. — Cut up very fine three large heads of cabbage and six seeded pods of green pepper. Add a table-spoonful of celery seed, a teaspoonful of allspice, the same of mace, white mustard-seed, and salt. Mix all well together, then cover with good cider vinegar, and put away in well-stopped glass bottles for use. Piquante Sauce. — Put in a saucepan half a table - spoonful of shallots, chopped fine, one table - spoonful of chopped pickles, half a table-spoonful of French capers, and a gill of wine vinegar. Boil to reduce half ; strain. Wash the saucepan and put in half a table - spoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of flour. Cook three minutes. Pour on slowly, stirring constantly, two gills of good, clear beef stock ; add the strained sauce and boil gently fifteen minutes. Remove from the fire, add half a table - spoonful of butter, one table - spoonful of finely sliced pickles, and a little chopped parsley. Pour the sauce in the centre of the platter, or it may be served separately. Serve very hot. Poulette Sauce. — Take 3 ozs. of fresh butter; cut from it a little piece the size of a nut, and melt the rest in a stewpan. Mix 3 ozs. of flour smoothly with it, and stir the paste over the fire for three minutes, then add gradually a pint of boiling stock. Stir the sauce over the fire for a quarter of an hour. Draw it away for a minute that it may cool slightly, and mix with it the yolks of two eggs which have been beaten up with two table-spoonfuls of thick cream. Simmer the sauce again until it begins to thicken, but it must not boil. Add to it a table - spoonful of chopped parsley, a little pepper and salt, and a dozen mushroom buttons, and pour it into the tureen. Just before sending to table stir into it the little piece of butter which was reserved ; then serve immediately. To prepare the mushrooms, remove the stalks and peel them. Put them into a stewpan with a table-spoonful of lemon-juice and a table-spoonful of water. Shake them over the fire for a minute or two till they have absorbed the juice. Put 1 oz. of butter with them, and boil over a quick fire for five minutes. Turn them into a basin, cover them over, and they are ready for the sauce. Time, altogether, half an hour. Pudding Sauces. See Puddings. Rhubarb Sauce. — Cut the rhubarb in pieces about an inch in length. Wash them and put the fruit into an earthen pudding-dish. To one quart of cut rhubarb use one cup of granulated sugar, a small half-cup of water, and a little grated orange or lemon peel. Cover the dish with a plate, and bake in a slow oven from two and a half to three hours. The rhubarb should remain whole and the sauce be a fine color. Russian Sauce Tartar Sauce Russian Sauce (for cold meats). — Take two teaspoonfuls of mixed mustard, a salt - spoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of sugar, and four of grated horseradish. Mix these with sufficient vinegar to cover them.