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Chicken, Mushroom Sauce For
Put the legs and neck of the chicken, with any trimmings of meat that are to be had, a small piece of mace, six or eight peppercorns, a bunch of savoury herbs, a small tea-spoonful of celery-seed bruised, a piece of thin lemon-rind, and a boned anchovy, into a saucepan with a pint of water, and let the liquid simmer down to half a pint. Prepare half a pint of young mushrooms, and put them into a stewpan with an ounce of butter rolled in flour, half a pint of the liquid strained, and one gill of cream or new milk. Put the sauce over a good fire, and stir it until it is sufficiently thick. Pour it round boiled chickens. Time, exclusive of the stock, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 10d., if made with milk. Sufficient for a couple of good-sized chickens. (See also CHICKEN, SAUCE FOR.)
A Victorian white sauce built on a quick stock from the bird's own trimmings, thickened with kneaded butter and flour rather than a cooked roux. The whole thing depends on that half-pint of well-reduced, well-strained stock, so start it before anything else.
- Imperial measuresThis is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz and a gill is a quarter of that, 5 fl oz. Half a pint of stock is 10 fl oz (about 1 1/4 US cups) and the gill of cream is roughly 2/3 US cup.
- Half a pint of mushroomsMushrooms are measured by volume, not weight: 10 fl oz of small whole button mushrooms comes to about 4 oz / 115 g. "Young" means firm closed caps, which keep the sauce pale; open flat mushrooms will turn it grey-brown.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is what a French kitchen would call beurre mania flour quantity is not given; roughly equal parts butter and flour by weight is the usual proportion. Added cold, it disperses as the liquid heats, thickening without the nutty taste of a cooked roux, which is why the sauce stays pale.
- "A good fire"Read this as a brisk medium heat, stirring constantly, not a hard boil. Once the cream is in, keep it just below boiling; a rolling boil with beurre manié and dairy will thin the sauce and can split it.
- New milkFresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unskimmed and unhomogenised. Whole milk is the closest substitute, though the sauce will be noticeably leaner than the cream version.
- The anchovyOne boned salt anchovy or two oil-packed fillets, simmered in the stock and then strained out, works as seasoning rather than flavouring — it reads as savoury depth, not fish. Season with salt only after the anchovy stock has reduced, as reduction concentrates it.
- Timing the mushroomsA quarter of an hour is for the sauce as a whole. Small buttons are done in five to eight minutes; if you want them to hold their shape, add them once the sauce has begun to thicken rather than at the start.
- Straining mattersMace, peppercorns, celery seed and lemon rind all go in whole and all come out. Strain the reduced stock through a fine sieve or muslin — bruised celery seed in particular leaves gritty fragments that spoil the texture.
- YieldHalf a pint of stock plus a gill of cream or milk gives roughly three-quarters of a pint of liquid, plus the mushrooms. The recipe says it is sufficient for a couple of good-sized chickens. The 'probable cost, 10d.' is a period price for the milk version and has no modern equivalent.
Cassell's belongs to the era when a boiled fowl, pale and gently poached, was a standard centrepiece for invalid cookery, luncheon and plain family dinners o to to be to come to the table with a sauce poured round it. The frugality is characteristic: the legs and neck of the very chicken you are serving, plus "any trimmings of meat that are to be had", become the stock, so the sauce costs almost nothing beyond the mushrooms and the milk. The boned anchovy is a distinctly English touch of the period, when anchovy essence and mushroom ketchup were kept on hand as background savour for meat and fish sauces alike; the fish is meant to disappear entirely. Celery seed and blade mace point to the same tradition, a store-cupboard of dried aromatics used where a later cook would reach for stock cubes or fresh herbs. The "probable cost" line, a regular feature of the dictionary's recipes, was aimed squarely at the mistress of a household budgeting by the penny and checking her cook's accounts.