Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery Part 5

MUSTARD SAUCE.--Make, say, half a pint of good b.u.t.ter sauce, add to this a tablespoonful of French mustard and a tablespoonful of made English mustard. Stir this into the sauce, make it hot, and serve.

N.B.--French mustard is sold ready-made in jars, and is flavoured with tarragon, capers, ravigotte, &c.

ONION SAUCE.--Take half a dozen large onions, peel them and boil them in a little salted water till they are tender. Then take them out and chop them up fine, and put them in a stew-pan with a little milk. Thicken the sauce with a little b.u.t.ter and flour, or white roux, and season with pepper and salt. A very nice mild onion sauce is made by using Spanish onions.

ONION SAUCE, BROWN.--Slice up half a dozen good-sized onions; put them in a frying-pan and fry them in a little b.u.t.ter till they begin to get brown, but be careful not to burn them, and should there be a few black pieces in the frying-pan, remove them; now chop up the onions, not too finely, and put them in a saucepan with a very little stock or water, let them simmer till they are tender, and then thicken the sauce with a little brown roux, and flavour with pepper and salt.

ORANGE CREAM SAUCE FOR PUDDINGS.--Take a large ripe orange and rub a dozen lumps of sugar on the outside of the rind and dissolve these in a small quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter sauce, and add the juice of the orange, strained. Now add a little cream, or half a pint of milk that has been boiled separately, in which case the sauce will want thickening with a little white roux.

Rubbing the sugar on the outside of the rind of the orange gives a very strong orange flavour indeed--far more than the juice of almost any number of oranges would produce, so care must be taken not to overdo it. This is what French cooks call zest of orange.

PARSLEY SAUCE.--Blanch and chop up sufficient parsley to make a br.i.m.m.i.n.g tablespoonful when chopped. Add this to half a pint of b.u.t.ter sauce, with a little pepper, salt, and lemon juice. It is very important to blanch the parsley, _i.e._, throw it into a little boiling water before chopping.

PINE-APPLE SAUCE.--Take a pine-apple, peel it, cut it up into little pieces on a dish, taking care not to lose any of the juice, place it in a saucepan with a very little water, just sufficient to cover the pine-apple; let it simmer gently until it is tender, and then add sufficient white sugar to make the liquid almost a syrup; a teaspoonful of corn-flour, made smooth in a little cold water, can be added; but the sauce should be of the consistency of syrup, and the corn-flour does away with the difficulty of making it too sickly. The juice of half a lemon may be added, and is, perhaps, an improvement.

PLUM SAUCE.--When made from ripe plums, take, say, a pound, and place them in a stew-pan with a very little water and a quarter of a pound of sugar.

Take out the stones and crack them. Throw the kernels into boiling water so that you can rub off the skin, and add them to the sauce after you have rubbed the stewed plums through a wire sieve.

To make plum sauce from dried French plums proceed exactly as in making Prune Sauce. (_See_ PRUNE SAUCE.)

POIVRADE SAUCE.--Take an onion, a very small head of celery, and a carrot, and cut them into little pieces, and put them into a frying-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, a saltspoonful of thyme, one or two dried bay-leaves, and about a quarter of a grated nutmeg and two or three sprigs of parsley. Fry these till they turn a light-brown colour, then add a little stock or water, and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Let this boil in the frying-pan for about half an hour, till the liquid is reduced in quant.i.ty. Thicken it with a little brown roux, and rub it through a wire sieve, make it hot, and serve. If wine is allowed, the addition of a little sherry is a great improvement to this sauce.

PRUNE SAUCE.--Take a quarter of a pound of prunes, put them in a stew-pan with just sufficient water to cover them, and let them stew. Put in one or two strips of lemon-peel to stew with them, add a teaspoonful of brown sugar, about sufficient powdered cinnamon to cover a shilling, and the juice of half a lemon. When the prunes are quite tender take out the strip of lemon-peel and stones, rub the whole through a wire sieve, and serve.

RADISH SAUCE.--Take a few bunches of radishes and grate them, and mix this grated radish with a little oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. You can colour the sauce red by adding a little beetroot, and make the sauce hot by adding a little grated horse-radish. This cold sauce is exceedingly nice with cheese. These _grated_ radishes are more digestible than radishes served whole.

RASPBERRY SAUCE.--This sauce is simply stewed raspberries rubbed through a wire sieve and sweetened. Some red-currant juice should be added to give it a colour. It is very nice made hot and then added to one or two beaten-up eggs and poured over any plain puddings, such as boiled rice, &c.

RATAFIA SAUCE.--Add a few drops of essence of ratafia to some sweetened arrowroot or to some b.u.t.ter sauce. The sauce can be coloured pink with a few drops of cochineal.

RAVIGOTTE SAUCE.--Put a tablespoonful each of Harvey's sauce, tarragon vinegar, and chilli vinegar into a small saucepan, and let it boil till it is reduced to almost one-half in quant.i.ty, in order to get rid of the acidity. Now add about half a pint of b.u.t.ter sauce, and throw in a tablespoonful of chopped blanched parsley.

ROBERT SAUCE.--Take a couple of onions, cut them up into small pieces, and fry them with about an ounce of b.u.t.ter in a frying-pan. Drain off the b.u.t.ter and add a couple of tablespoonfuls of vinegar to the frying-pan, and let it simmer for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour so as to get rid of the acidity of the vinegar. Now add a very little stock or water, stir it tip, and thicken the sauce with a little brown roux. Add a dessertspoonful of fresh mustard and a little pepper and salt.

SOUBISE SAUCE.--Sauce Soubise is simply white onion sauce, rubbed through a wire sieve, and a little cream added. It is more delicate than ordinary onion sauce, and is often served in France with roast pheasant. It owes its name to a famous French general.

SORREL SAUCE.--Put about a quart of fresh green sorrel leaves (after being thoroughly washed) into an enamelled saucepan, with a little fresh b.u.t.ter, and let the sorrel stew till it is tender. Rub this through a wire sieve, add a little powdered sugar and a little lemon juice; a little cream may be added, but is not absolutely essential.

SWEET SAUCE.--Take half a pint of b.u.t.ter sauce, and sweeten it with a little sugar. It can be flavoured by rubbing a little sugar on the outside of a lemon, or with vanilla, essence of almonds, or any kind of sweet essence. A little wine, brandy, or, still better, rum, is a great improvement. Some persons add cream.

TARRAGON SAUCE.--Blanch a dozen tarragon leaves, chop them up, and stew them in any kind of stock thickened with brown roux.

TARTAR SAUCE.--Take two or three tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise sauce, and add to this a br.i.m.m.i.n.g teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley, as well as a piece of onion or shallot about as big as the top of the thumb down to the first joint, chopped very fine, and a br.i.m.m.i.n.g teaspoonful of French mustard. Mix the whole well together.

N.B.--A teaspoonful of anchovy sauce would be a great improvement were anchovy sauce allowed in vegetarian cookery.

TOMATO SAUCE.--The great secret of tomato sauce is to taste nothing but the tomato. Take a dozen ripe tomatoes, cut off the stalks, and squeeze out the pips, and put them in a stew-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, and let them stew till they are tender, and then rub the whole through a wire sieve.

This, in our opinion, is the best tomato sauce that can be made, the only seasoning being a little pepper and salt. This wholesome and delicious sauce can, however, be spoilt in a variety of ways--by the addition of mace, cloves, shallots, onions, thyme, &c. It can also be made very unwholesome by the addition of a quant.i.ty of vinegar.

TRUFFLE SAUCE.--This sauce is very expensive if made from whole fresh truffles, but can be made more cheaply if you can obtain some truffle chips or parings. These must be stewed in a little stock, thickened with brown roux, and then rubbed through a wire sieve, a little sherry being a great improvement if wine is allowed.

VANILLA SAUCE.--Add some essence of vanilla to some sweetened b.u.t.ter sauce.

WHITE SAUCE.--White sauce is sometimes required for vegetables and sometimes for puddings. In the former case some good-flavoured, uncoloured stock must be thickened with white roux, and then have sufficient cream added to it to make the sauce a pure white.

When white sauce is wanted for puddings, sufficient b.u.t.ter sauce must be sweetened, and very slightly flavoured with nutmeg or almond, and then an equal quant.i.ty of cream added to it to make it a pure white. White sauce should not have with it any strong predominant flavour.

CHAPTER III.

SAVOURY RICE, MACARONI, OATMEAL, &c.

RICE.

Probably all persons will admit that rice is a too much neglected form of food in England. When we remember how small a quant.i.ty of rice weekly is found sufficient to keep alive millions and millions of our fellow-creatures in the East, it seems to be a matter of regret that rice as an article of food is not more used by the thousands and thousands of our fellow creatures in the East--not in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but East of Temple Bar. Rice is cheap, nourishing, easily cooked, and equally easily digested, yet that monster, custom, seems to step in and prevent the bulk of the poor availing themselves of this light and nourishing food solely for the reason that, as their grandfathers and grandmothers did not eat rice before them, they do not see any reason why they should, like the Irishman who objected to have his feet washed on the same ground. Of the different kinds of rice Carolina is the best, the largest, and the most expensive. Patna rice is almost as good; the grains are long, small, and white, and it is the best rice for curry. Madras rice is the cheapest.

Rice, pure and simple, is the food most suited for hot climates and where a natural indolence of disposition results in one's day's work of an ordinary Englishman being divided among twenty people. As we move towards more temperate zones it will be found the universal custom to qualify it by mixing it with some other substance; thus, though rice is largely eaten in Italy, it is almost invariably used in conjunction with Parmesan cheese.

Rice contains no flesh-forming properties whatever, as it contains no nitrogen; and with all due respect to vegetarians, it will be found that as we recede from the Equator and advance towards the Poles our food must of necessity vary with the lat.i.tude, and, whereas we may start on a diet of rice, we shall be forced, sooner or later, to depend upon a diet of pemmican, or food of a similar nature.

RICE, TO BOIL.--The best method of boiling rice is, at any rate, a much disputed point, if not an open question. There are as many ways almost of boiling rice as dressing a salad, and each one thinks his own way the best.

We will mention a few of the most simple, and will ill.u.s.trate it by boiling a small quant.i.ty that can be contained in a teacup. Of course, boiling rice is very much simplified if you want some rice-water as well as rice itself. Rice-water contains a great deal of nourishment, a fact which is well ill.u.s.trated by the well-known story of the black troops who served in India under Clive, who, at the siege of Arcot, told Clive, when they were short of provisions, that the water in which the rice was boiled would be sufficient for them, while the more substantial grain could be preserved for the European troops. Take a teacupful of rice and wash the rice in several waters till the water ceases to be discoloured. Now throw the rice into boiling water, say a quart; let the rice boil gently till it is tender, strain off the rice and reserve the rice-water for other purposes.

The time rice will take to boil treated this way would be probably about twenty minutes, but this time would vary slightly with the quality and size of the rice.