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Sicilian Sauce, for Fowls, Turkeys, Etc
Cut four ounces of lean ham into dice, and simmer gently in a quarter of a pint of water till it is reduced to half the quantity. Strain, stir it into a quarter of a pint of strong stock, then simmer it again with a slice of lemon-rind and pulp, together half an inch thick, half a tea-spoonful of coriander-seeds, and a pinch of powdered mace. At the end of eight or ten minutes add a stick of celery, a pinch of cayenne, and a clove of garlic. If the flavour is objected to, the latter article can be omitted, and a shallot or a small onion substituted for it. Simmer all gently together for twenty minutes. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter, and a glassful of light wine, and let the sauce boil till it coats the spoon. Time altogether, one hour and three-quarters. Sufficient for a good-sized fowl.
A small, strongly flavoured sauce built on a ham infusion rather than a stock reduction, meant to be spooned over roast poultry. Nothing here is difficult, but the quantities are Imperial and several aromatics are meant to be strained out rather than eaten.
- The measuresA quarter of a pint Imperial is 5 fl oz, a scant 2/3 cup. Two quarter-pints are called for in all, but the first is reduced by half before it joins the second, so the pan holds only about 7 or 8 fl oz. A "glassful of light wine" is not defined; period wineglassfuls are usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so read it as somewhere between 2 and 4 fl oz.
- Strain twiceStrain -- The ham dice are strained out after the first simmer. The celery stick, lemon rind and pulp, garlic and coriander seeds are left in and the recipe never says to remove them, though you will want to lift or strain them out before serving. Whole coriander seeds in a finished sauce are unpleasant; bruise them first so they give up more in ten minutes.
- Salt lastLean ham simmered down to half its water makes a salty base, and the stock adds more. Do not season until after the wine has cooked out and the sauce has thickened.
- Thickening"Thicken with flour and butter" most likely means kneaded butter and flour, i.e. beurre manie: equal weights soft butter and flour worked to a paste, whisked in a pea-sized lump at a time. About 1/2 oz of each will bring 8-10 fl oz of liquid to a coating consistency.
- Add the wine before it thickens, not afterRaw flour and raw wine both need cooking out. Whisk in the beurre manié, add the wine, then hold it at a bare boil until it coats the back of a spoon and no longer tastes floury — five to eight minutes.
- "Light wine"A dry, unfortified table wine; the period usage means unfortified and low in alcohol rather than specifically white or specifically sweet. A dry sherry would push it in a different direction.
- The stated timeThe individual simmers add up to well under an hour; the hour and three-quarters allows for the initial ham reduction, which is slow if kept truly gentle. Judge by volume, not the clock.
- Yield"Sufficient for a good-sized fowl" works out to about a cup of finished sauce, enough for four to six servings of roast chicken.
Nineteenth-century English cookery attached national names to sauces fairly loosely, and "Sicilian" here probably signals the Mediterranean register of the seasoning rather than any particular dish from Sicily: lemon rind and pulp, coriander seed, mace, garlic and cayenne, a combination that may well have read as pointedly southern to a British reader accustomed to plain gravy or bread sauce. The structure is entirely of its time — a ham infusion standing in for a long-cooked stock, then flour and butter to bind, then wine — and it belongs to the large family of "made sauces" that Cassell's appears to arrange alphabetically by name for cooks working through a roast dinner. The instruction that garlic may be dropped for a shallot "if the flavour is objected to" is among the more datable things on the page: garlic was still treated in late Victorian English kitchens as something to be offered cautiously and apologised for.