Home › Fish and Meat Sauces › Bread Sauce
Bread Sauce
2 cups milk 1/2 cup fine stale bread crumbs 1 onion 6 cloves 1/2 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 3 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup coarse stale bread crumbs Cook milk thirty minutes in double boiler, with fine bread crumbs and onion stuck with cloves. Remove onion, add salt, cayenne, and two tablespoons butter. Usually served poured around roast partridge or grouse, and sprinkled with coarse crumbs browned in remaining butter.
An English game sauce that is essentially milk thickened with bread. It is forgiving, but two details decide whether it is silky or pasty.
- Fine vs. coarse crumbsThe fine crumbs dissolve into the milk and thicken it; the coarse crumbs are fried separately in the last tablespoon of butter and scattered over at the end for crunch. Do not use packaged dry breadcrumbs for the thickening \af, they turn the sauce gritty. Grate a day-old white loaf, crusts removed.
- The double boilerThirty minutes over simmering water is not fussiness. Milk and bread scorch readily over direct heat, and scorched milk taints the whole sauce. If you cook it in a heavy saucepan instead, keep it barely at a tremble and stir often.
- The clove-stuck onionA whole peeled onion pierced with six cloves is an infusion device, not an ingredient. It comes out before serving. One medium onion is right for two cups of milk; a large sweet onion will make the sauce cloying.
- ConsistencyHalf a cup of crumbs to two cups of milk gives a loose, spoonable sauce. If it thickens past that in the double boiler, slacken it with a little warm milk or cream just before serving; it stiffens further as it cools.
- Cayenne and seasoningA few grains means a pinch, enough to lift the milk without registering as heat. Some period versions add a scrape of nutmeg or a bay leaf to the infusion.
- The birdsPartridge and grouse are not supermarket items in most places. The sauce works equally with roast chicken, guinea fowl, pheasant or roast turkey.
- YieldRoughly two cups of sauce, enough for four to six servings. Best made while the bird rests; on standing or reheating it will need slackening with warm milk.