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Parsley Sauce
3 tablespoonfuls chopped parsley 1/2 pint (I cup) milk Pepper and salt to taste 2 ozs. (2 heaping tablespoonfuls) butter I oz. (I heaping tablespoonful) flour Blend the butter and the flour in a fireproof dish, then gradually add the milk, stir till boiling; add the seasonings and cook for eight minutes; then add the chopped parsley, stir, and serve.
A plain white sauce built in the casserole itself, with the parsley added at the very end. Two details matter: the butter-heavy roux and the late addition of the herb.
- "Fireproof dish"In a book of this kind the casserole is a flameproof earthenware or glazed dish meant to go directly over the burner. Any heavy saucepan does the same job; if your casserole is stoneware or the modern oven-only sort, make the sauce in a pan and transfer it.
- The measurementsThe book gives 1/2 pint as 1 cup, which is the American 8 fl oz reading rather than the British 20-oz pint. Take it as 1 cup (240 ml) milk to 1 oz flour, which the book itself reckons as 1 heaping tablespoonful — a good deal more flour to liquid than the usual pouring-sauce proportion, so expect a thick sauce.
- Butter to flourTwo ounces of butter to one of flour is twice the fat of a standard roux. The sauce will be rich and glossy but may look slightly broken; whisking hard as it comes to the boil pulls it together. Equal weights, 1 oz each, gives a cleaner result if you prefer.
- Cook the flour outThe eight minutes of simmering after boiling is the point of the recipe, not padding. It is what removes the raw pastiness of the flour. Keep the heat low and stir, since milk sauces catch on the bottom of a heavy dish quickly.
- Parsley lastThe herb goes in off the heat or at the very end for a reason: boiled parsley turns olive-drab and loses its grassy edge. Three tablespoons chopped is generous and correct — this should read green, not speckled.
- SeasoningWhite pepper is traditional here so the sauce stays unflecked, though black is no fault. The recipe seasons before the eight minutes' cooking; if you prefer, hold back some salt until the end, since the sauce thickens and concentrates as it cooks.
- Yield and servingA little over a cup, enough for about four modest servings. Standard partners are poached or steamed white fish, boiled ham or bacon, broad beans, and boiled fowl.
Parsley sauce is the most domestic branch of the French white-sauce family — a béchamel in all but name, thickened with a butter-and-flour roux rather than the older bread or egg-yolk methods. Its fixed place in British and American cookery owes much to boiled fish and boiled bacon, two cheap staples that badly need something to carry them; the sauce supplies the fat and the colour the food lacks. The parsley itself was most likely curled parsley, generally said to have been the default garden variety in English-speaking kitchens, with flat-leaf usually described as a later arrival.