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Wine Sauce, Red
This is a Danish sauce to be eaten with plum pudding. Take a quarter of a pint of cherry-juice and half a pint of wine. When the mixture boils put in a good spoonful of flour mixed with a gill of water and two or three spoonfuls of brandy. Just before the sauce reaches the boiling point take it off, and serve immediately.
A thin pouring sauce built on cherry juice and red wine, thickened with a flour slurry. The whole thing takes under ten minutes, and the only real skill is in the thickening.
- The measuresThese are British imperial: a quarter of a pint is 5 fl oz (about 2/3 cup), half a pint is 10 fl oz (1 1/4 cups), and a gill is another 5 fl oz. That comes to a full imperial pint of liquid in the pan, roughly 2 1/2 cups, plus the brandy.
- The hinge: cook the flourA spoonful of flour in a gill of cold water is a lot of liquid for a little starch, and pulling the pan off "just before boiling" leaves it tasting raw and pasty. Let it come to a bare simmer and hold it there two or three minutes, stirring, until the cloudiness clears and it coats a spoon.
- Add the brandy separatelyAs written the brandy goes in with the flour water, which dilutes the slurry further. Stir it in at the end, off the heat, so the aroma survives; a longer simmer will drive most of it off.
- SweeteningNo sugar is specified. Cherry juice sold bottled was often a sweetened syrup, closer to modern cherry cordial or Danish kirsebaersaft, which may be why none is called for. With unsweetened juice you will need 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar, added with the wine so it dissolves.
- The wineThe title specifies red, though the recipe says only "wine". Something dry and unoaked works best; heavily oaked bottles turn bitter when cooked with fruit juice.
- LumpsWhisk the flour into the cold water until smooth before it goes near the hot pan, and pour it in a thin stream while stirring. Alternatively use 2 teaspoons of cornstarch in place of the flour for a clearer, glossier sauce that needs only a minute at the simmer.
- ServingSend it to the table hot in a warmed jug. It thickens noticeably as it cools and will need a splash of water and a quick reheat if it sits.
The recipe itself calls this a Danish sauce, and it belongs to a family of northern European sweet wine sauces poured hot over steamed and baked puddings. The pairing with plum pudding suggests a British book borrowing abroad. The technique — juice and wine thickened with a flour and water slurry rather than with eggs or butter — is the plainest kind of thickening available, and marks this as an everyday sauce rather than a confectioner's one.