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MEAT and FISH SAUCES
White Sauce No. 1 2 tablespoons butter 1/2 tablespoon Gold Medal flour 1 cup milk 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper Melt the butter, add the flour mixed with seasonings, and stir until thoroughly blended. Pour on the milk, one-third at a time, stirring till well mixed, and cook until smooth. Milk may be used cold or scalded. White Sauce No. 2 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons Gold Medal flour 1 cup milk 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper In making, follow the directions given for White Sauce No. 1. White Sauce No. 3 (For Croquettes, etc.) 2 1/2 tablespoons butter 1/4 cup Gold Medal flour 1 cup milk 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper For making, follow directions given for White Sauce No. 1.
Three thicknesses of the same sauce, given as a graded set: thin for soups and creamed dishes, medium for vegetables and gratins, thick enough to bind a croquette mixture. The technique is identical in each case; only the flour changes.
- The hinge: cook the roux before the milk goes inThe hinge: blend the roux before the milk goes in. The book says only "stir until thoroughly blended," but a short cooking over low heat takes the raw edge off the starch. Keep it pale — it should foam, not colour.
- That half-tablespoon of flourWhite Sauce No. 1 as printed is exceptionally thin, and period cookery tables commonly give a full tablespoon of flour per cup of milk for a thin sauce; the 2 tablespoons butter to 1/2 tablespoon flour here may well be a misprint. Half a tablespoon will barely thicken; treat it as a very light cream soup base, or use a full tablespoon if you want a pouring sauce.
- Flour then and nowGold Medal of this period was milled from hard spring wheat and would have run higher in protein than a typical modern all-purpose. Any difference in thickening power will be slight; err on the light side and adjust.
- Cold milk versus scaldedThe note is genuine and useful: cold milk added gradually to a hot roux is the more forgiving route, since it gives you time to whisk out lumps before the starch sets. Scalded milk is faster but wants constant stirring.
- Cook it longer than it looks like it needsThe sauce thickens well before the flour is done. Keep it at a bare simmer for three to five minutes after it comes together, or the finished dish will taste pasty.
- Proportions at a glanceNo. 1 is thin, No. 2 is the standard medium sauce (2 tablespoons butter and flour to 1 cup milk), No. 3 is a panada-thick binder — 1/4 cup flour will set nearly solid when chilled, which is exactly what croquettes require.
- YieldEach version makes about 1 cup. The book gives no chilling step, but a croquette mixture needs to be thoroughly cold and firm before it is shaped and crumbed; warm mixture will not hold.
- SeasoningA quarter teaspoon of salt per cup is modest by modern palates, and the sauce carries whatever it coats. Taste at the end, and add a grating of nutmeg if it is going over vegetables or into a gratin.
The graded white sauce — thin, medium, thick, numbered rather than named — was a hallmark of American domestic-science teaching in the decades around 1900, popularised through cooking schools and their textbooks, where a single ratio table was meant to replace a shelf of separate recipes. It is often said to descend from the French sauce béchamel by way of the English "white sauce," but the classroom version drops the aromatics and infusions and reduces the thing to butter, flour, milk and arithmetic. A cook who understood the ratio would reach for flour as a matter of routine, in sauces, croquettes, creamed fish and scalloped dishes alike.