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Brown Mushroom Sauce (Tablespoons butter Few drops)
3 tablespoons butter Few drops onion juice 3 1/2 tablespoons flour 1 cup cream 1/2 lb. mushrooms 1 teaspoon beef extract Salt Paprika Melt butter, add onion juice, and cook until slightly browned; then add flour and continue the browning. Pour on, gradually, while stirring constantly, the cream. Clean mushrooms, peal caps, cut in slices lengthwise, and saute in butter five minutes. Break stems in pieces, cover with cold water, and cook slowly until liquor is reduced to one-third cup; then strain. Dissolve beef extract in mushroom liquor. Add to sauce, and season with salt and paprika. Just before serving, and sauted caps.
Halibut Timbales I 1 lb. halibut 1/3 cup thick cream 3/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice Whites 3 eggs Cook halibut in boiling salted water, drain, and rub through a sieve. Season with salt, cayenne, and lemon juice; add cream beaten until stiff, then beaten whites of eggs. Turn into small, slightly buttered moulds, put in a pan, half surround with hot water, cover with buttered paper, and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven. Remove from moulds, arrange on a serving dish, pour around Bechamel Sauce or Lobster Sauce II, and garnish with parsley.
A brown roux sauce enriched with cream, mushroom stem stock and beef extract. The flavour hinges on browning the butter and flour properly before the cream goes in.
- Brown the roux, gentlyCook the butter and flour together over medium-low heat until it smells nutty and turns the colour of light toast, four to six minutes. Rushing this on high heat scorches the flour and the sauce turns bitter rather than deep.
- Onion juiceGrate a piece of onion on a fine grater and press the pulp in a sieve; a few drops is all that is wanted. A pinch of onion powder or a teaspoon of very finely minced shallot works as well.
- Beef extractThis means a concentrated meat paste of the Bovril or Liebig type; such commercial extracts were on sale in this period. A teaspoon of a modern beef bouillon concentrate is the nearest substitute.
- CreamThe book writes 'thick cream' when it wants a rich one (see the timbales on the same page), so plain 'cream' here may mean a lighter cream; heavy or whipping cream will give a richer sauce. Add it in a slow stream while stirring constantly, as the recipe directs.
- Peeling the capsModern white or cremini caps need only wiping; skip the peeling and simply trim the stem end.
- The stem stockCover the broken stems with cold water and simmer until the liquor is reduced to a third of a cup, as directed; it carries much of the mushroom flavour of the sauce, so do not shortcut it.
- Adding the capsThe sauted slices go in at the last moment, off the heat, so they keep their bite. Held in the hot sauce they weep liquid and go slack.
- YieldAbout a cup and a half of sauce, enough for four to six servings over steak, chicken, toast or noodles. Thin with a little of the mushroom liquor or milk if it stiffens on standing.