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Lemon Sauce, for Fowls, White
Take about half a pint of white stock (or, failing this, boil the trimmings of the fowls with a little water), put it into a saucepan with the thin rind of a lemon, six white peppercorns, half a blade of mace, pounded, a quarter of a nutmeg, grated, a small tea-spoonful of salt, and a bunch of parsley. Simmer gently for twenty minutes. Strain the sauce, add half a pint of good cream or milk, thicken with a dessert-spoonful of flour mixed smoothly with a little cold milk, and boil gently a few minutes longer. Just before serving, add the strained juice of the lemon, but let the sauce cool a little before it is put in, and stir it well or it will curdle. If wanted very rich the sauce may be thickened with a little butter rolled in flour. Time twenty minutes to flavour the stock. Probable cost, 1s., if made with cream. Sufficient for six persons.
A white velvet-textured sauce built on fowl stock, cream and lemon, meant to be spooned over boiled or poached chicken. Everything hinges on how the lemon juice goes in.
- Add the lemon juice off the heatAcid dropped into hot cream will split it. Pull the pan from the burner, let the sauce drop below a simmer, then pour the strained juice in a thin stream while stirring constantly. Do not return it to a boil afterwards.
- Imperial half-pintsCassell's is a British book, so half a pint is 10 fl oz, roughly 1¼ US cups. You need that much stock and again as much cream or milk, giving about 2½ cups of finished sauce.
- Dessert-spoonfulBetween a teaspoon and a tablespoon; take it as 2 teaspoons of flour. That is a light thickening for a pint of liquid, which is the intention here — a pouring sauce, not a coating one.
- Mace and nutmegBlades vary, but half a blade of mace is somewhere in the region of ⅛ to ¼ teaspoon of ground mace; a quarter of a nutmeg grated is roughly ½ teaspoon. Both are assertive, and the nutmeg in particular will dominate if you round up.
- Lemon rind, thinly"Thin rind" means zest pared with no white pith, which turns the sauce bitter over twenty minutes of simmering. A vegetable peeler in long strips is easiest to fish out at the straining stage.
- The stock shortcutSimmering the fowl's wing tips, neck and back in water for 30–40 minutes gives a perfectly good substitute. A light chicken stock works; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, which will muddy the colour.
- Butter rolled in flourThe richer finish is beurre manié — equal weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste, whisked in in small pieces at the end. Use it instead of the flour slurry, not in addition, or the sauce goes pasty.
- YieldEnough for six as written, at roughly 3 fl oz (about five or six tablespoons) each. It thickens as it stands and will need a splash of milk to loosen if held warm.
Lemon sauce for boiled fowl belongs to a long English tradition of pale, spiced sauces for pale meat — the same family as bread sauce, white onion sauce and the fricassee liaisons of the eighteenth century, in which mace and nutmeg feature prominently. It follows a standard progression: infuse a stock with aromatics, strain, enrich, thicken, and finish with acid at the last moment. The costing of a shilling is characteristic of the book, which priced almost every dish so a household could weigh cream against milk.