Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/253

Rh 2. Brown Stock.—All good brown savoury sauces are made from stock, more or less rich according to the purpose for which they are intended.

3. Fish Stock.—Fish sauces usually have for their foundation about equal quantities of fish stock and milk.

4. Milk.—Milk forms the basis of nearly all the plain white sauces, both sweet and savoury, also of bread sauce.

5. Water.—Strictly speaking, all melted butter sauces should be made only with water; a little of the broth in which fish or meat has been boiled is admissible, and is also an improvement to caper sauce; but when milk is added to the broth, as is frequently the case, to improve the colour, the foundation becomes white sauce, not melted butter.

6. Oil.—Mayonnaise sauce, and others of a similar character known as salad sauce, are composed almost entirely of oil as their basis.

7. Fruit.—Apple, cranberry, gooseberry, etc.

VARIETIES OF SAUCES.

Sauces may be broadly divided into two classes, white and brown; each class being further subdivided into sauces made by a long, slow process, and quickly-made sauces.

FOUNDATION OF STANDARD SAUCES.

(a) White.—Béchamel forms the foundation of all the good white sauces; it is made by the slow process, which extracts the full flavour of the substances employed.

(b) Plain White Sauce.—Nearly all the white sauces employed in middle-class cookery have for their foundation a plain white sauce made by the quick process. Their flavour depends mainly on the substances added to them, such as parsley, celery, chocolate, vanilla, orange-essence, etc.

(a) Brown.—Espagnole.—This sauce and the Béchamel have been aptly described as "Adam" and "Eve." France adds to them the Veloutée and Allemande, and calls the group the "sauces mères," or "mother sauces." The Espagnole forms the basis of all good brown sauces, and these, like the white sauces, derive their distinctive names from the substances added to the foundation sauce. The rich exquisite characteristic flavour of Espagnole sauce is due partly to the lean bacon or ham which forms an indispensable part of it, and partly to the long, slow frying process to which the flour and other ingredients are subjected.

(b) Plain Brown Sauces.—These sauces are always less quickly made than the plain white sauces, for no matter how simple they may be,