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Shikaree Sauce for Ducks and Wild Fowl
Mix a teaspoonful of cayenne with a tablespoonful of powdered white sugar. Put the mixture into a small saucepan, and pour over it 2 glassfuls of mushroom ketchup, 2 glassfuls of claret, and the strained juice of a large fresh lemon. Stir the liquor over the fire till the sugar is dissolved and it is quite hot. Serve immediately. Sufficient for six or eight persons. Ricardo Sauce for Game, etc.
Take any bones of cold roast game that may be left from a previous dressing, chop them into small pieces, and dredge a tablespoonful of flour over them. Slice 4 moderate-sized onions, and fry them in butter until they are lightly browned without being burnt; put them into a clean saucepan with the bones, half a pint of stock made from bones, a quarter of a teaspoonful of extract of meat, a crust of toasted bread, a glassful of sherry, and a little pepper and salt. Stir the sauce over the fire till done enough, rub it through a fine sieve, heat it again, and serve. Time, a quarter of an hour to simmer the sauce. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A fierce, sweet-sour ketchup sauce meant to cut the fat of roast duck or the muskiness of wild fowl. It needs no thickening and no reduction — heat it just enough to dissolve the sugar and send it to the table.
- GlassfulIn Victorian cookery an unqualified "glassful" in a sauce is usually read as a wineglass, about 2 fl oz (¼ cup), though the term is not fixed. On that reading two glassfuls each of ketchup and claret gives about ½ cup of each, or roughly a cup of liquid before the lemon goes in.
- Mushroom ketchupNot tomato ketchup. It is a thin, black, salty mushroom-and-spice liquor, still sold by British condiment makers; a well-flavoured mushroom soy or a dark mushroom stock reduced with a splash of soy is the nearest substitute. Using tomato ketchup makes an entirely different, much sweeter sauce.
- Heat, not boilThe point of the sauce is fresh lemon and raw wine aroma over a fiery base. Take it off the heat as soon as the sugar has gone and the surface steams — a simmer drives off the lemon and leaves the claret tasting stewed.
- The cayenneA full teaspoon of cayenne in about a cup of liquid is very hot by modern palates, and the heat of ground cayenne varies widely between brands. Start with half and add the rest to taste once the sauce is warm.
- ClaretAny dry red Bordeaux-style wine — Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. It is not cooked down, so the wine's own character carries straight through; avoid anything oaky or sweet.
- Powdered white sugarIn Victorian usage this is a fine-ground sugar close to modern caster, not modern confectioners' or icing sugar, which contains cornstarch. Ordinary granulated sugar dissolves perfectly well in the warm liquid.
- ServingThe recipe makes about a cup for six to eight, so roughly two tablespoons a person, spooned over carved duck or poured into a warmed sauceboat. It is thin by design and will not coat; it is a dressing for the meat rather than a gravy.