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Lemon Sauce
2 lemons 1 tablespoonful cornstarch I oz. (I heaping table- 1/2 pint (I cup) water spoonful) sugar
A plain cornstarch-thickened lemon sauce of the sort served hot over steamed and baked puddings. The proportions are the useful part; a few of the units need translating.
- Half a pintThe book's half pint is 1 cup (8 fl oz, about 240 ml), as the parenthesis confirms. British readers of the same period would have meant 10 fl oz by a half pint, so take the cup figure.
- An ounce of sugarOne ounce of granulated sugar is about 2 level tablespoons, not one. Weigh it at 28-30 g rather than trusting the "heaping tablespoonful" gloss, which runs light.
- The thickening ratioOne tablespoon of cornstarch to one cup of liquid gives a sauce that just coats a spoon and pours freely. If you want it thicker for a heavy pudding, go to a scant two tablespoons; more than that turns it pasty.
- Slake the starch coldCornstarch must be stirred smooth with a little of the cold water before it meets anything hot, then brought to a full boil for a minute so the raw starch flavour cooks out. Starch that is dumped into hot liquid seizes into lumps that will not disperse.
- Lemon lastAdd the juice off the heat, at the end. Acid added early can weaken cornstarch and thin the finished sauce.
- Lemons have grownLemon quantity -- Two modern lemons yield roughly 4-6 tablespoons of juice, which is assertive against a single cup of water. Taste and hold some back if you want it milder.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of sauce, enough for roughly six modest servings of pudding.
Hot lemon sauce belongs to the long Anglo-American tradition of pouring sauces for boiled and steamed puddings, where a sharp, sweet, slightly thickened liquid did the work that a modern cook might give to custard or cream. Its dependence on cornstarch dates it: cornstarch was manufactured on a commercial scale in the United States from the middle of the nineteenth century, and it was often preferred to arrowroot and flour in household sauces because it thickened clear rather than cloudy and left no floury taste.