This section is from the book "Salads, Sandwiches And Chafing-Dish Dainties", by Janet McKenzie Hill. Also available from Amazon: Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Dainties.
Let hunger move thy appetyte, and not savory sauces.
- Babees Book.
"Change is the sauce that sharpens appetite".
As so many dishes are prepared in the chafing-dish that require the use of a simple sauce, we give in this place the methods usually followed in the preparation of common sauces. For one cup of sauce, put two tablespoonfuls of butter into the blazer; let the butter simply melt, without coloring, if for a white sauce, but cook until brown for a brown sauce. Mix together two tablespoon fuls of flour, one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of black or white pepper, or a few grains of cayenne or paprica, and beat it into the bubbling butter; let the mixture cook two or three minutes, then stir into it, rather gradually at first, and beating constantly, one cup of cold milk, water or stock. Now, when the sauce boils up once after all the liquid is in, it is ready for use. In making a white sauce some cooks add, from time to time while the sauce is being stirred, a few drops of lemon juice, which they claim makes the sauce much whiter.
Sometimes we make the sauce after another fashion, using the same proportions of the various ingredients. If water or stock be used, put it in the blazer directly over the fire. If the liquid be milk, put it into the blazer, and the blazer over hot water; cream together the butter, flour and seasonings, dilute with a little of the hot liquid, pour into the remainder of the hot liquid, and stir constantly until the sauce thickens, and then occasionally for ten or fifteen minutes, until the flour is thoroughly cooked.
In making a brown sauce, first brown the butter, then brown the flour in the butter, and, whenever it is convenient, use brown stock as the liquid.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 2 tablespoonfuls of flour.
1/4 a teaspoonful of salt. A few grains of pepper.
1 cup of liquid.
1/4 a cup of butter. 1/4 a cup of flour.
1/2 a teaspoonful of salt. 1/4 a teaspoonful of pepper.
1 pint of liquid.
In all recipes where flour is used, unless otherwise stated, the flour is measured after sifting once. When flour is measured by cups, the cup is filled with a spoon, and a level cupful is meant. A table-spoonful or teaspoonful of any designated material is a level spoonful of such material.
When rich soup stock, flavored with vegetables and sweet herbs, is at hand for use in sauces, additional seasonings are not necessary; but when a sauce is made of milk, water, or water and meat extract, some flavor more or less pronounced is demanded. A few bits of onion and carrot browned in hot butter, or anchovy sauce or curry may be added; but, all things considered, the most convenient way to secure an appetizing flavor is by the use of "Kitchen Bouquet." This alone or in conjunction with a dash of some one of the many really good proprietary sauces on the market is well nigh indispensable in chafing-dish cookery.
 
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