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MELTED BUTTER SAUCE (another way)
Put the desired quantity of butter into an enamelled saucepan; heat it slowly on the range until it looks frothy; add a squeeze of lemon and a little cayenne, and serve in a sauce tureen. This sauce may be served with fish, dressed vegetables, asparagus, artichokes, etc.
A three-line sauce whose whole character depends on how far you take the butter. The instruction that matters is "frothy" — that is the stage just after the water boils off, before the milk solids brown.
- QuantitiesThe original gives none. Allow about 1 oz (2 tablespoons) of butter per person for asparagus or artichokes, a little less alongside fish. Unsalted butter gives you control over the seasoning.
- "Frothy" is the cueButter foams as its water content boils away, somewhere above 212F. Pull it at the foam, while the solids in the bottom are still pale gold; carried further it becomes beurre noisette, and further still it burns.
- Low heat, and watch it"Slowly on the range" would have meant the cooler part of the range top. On gas or induction use low heat and do not walk away — the window between frothy and brown is short.
- Why enamelledBare iron or unlined copper would react with the lemon juice and taint the sauce. Any modern stainless, enamelled or nonstick pan does the same job.
- CayenneA very small pinch, meant to be felt rather than tasted. Ground cayenne today is more consistent than the Victorian article, which varied in strength; start with less than looks right.
- Add the lemon off the heatSqueeze it in once the pan is off the burner, or the acid will hiss and spit into hot fat and the fresh citrus note will cook away.
- ServingA warmed sauce tureen or small jug is not fussiness — melted butter sets and separates fast in a cold vessel. Give it a stir before pouring so the browned solids are suspended rather than left in the bottom.
- Not the other melted butterIn many English cookery books "melted butter" means a flour-thickened white sauce. This entry is the plain kind, so do not expect it to coat or cling.
"Melted butter" was the workhorse sauce of the English kitchen for well over two centuries, and it was the object of a good deal of French scorn — the standing joke, often repeated in the nineteenth century, was that England had one sauce and served it with everything. The usual version was butter thickened with flour and water; this one, headed "another way", dispenses with the roux entirely and lets the butter itself be the sauce, seasoned only with acid and heat. That plainer approach fits the dishes listed here. Asparagus, globe artichokes and boiled fish were all eaten as much for the sauce they carried as for themselves, and a thickened sauce would mask them where warm butter and lemon do not. Cayenne appears in a great many Victorian savoury recipes as a general sharpener.