Lemon Sauce
Put the thin rind of a lemon with three tablespoonfuls of sugar to simmer for twenty minutes in a tumblerful of water. Some persons think it enough to grate the lemon with lumps of sugar-but this detracts from the clearness of the sauce. When the simmering is ended take out the lemon-peel and add the strained juice of the lemon. This is extremely simple, but it is nicer than many a much more laboured sauce. Perhaps it is not quite fair to add that it is sometimes supplemented with gin. To be used with sweet entremets.
A clear lemon syrup rather than a thickened sauce, and it stands or falls on keeping it transparent. Everything here is about extracting oil from the peel without clouding the liquid.
- A tumblerfulIn Victorian kitchen usage a tumbler is roughly 8-10 fl oz, so call it a generous cup of water. The exact figure matters little, as the simmer reduces it anyway.
- The hinge: pare, don't grateTake the rind in wide strips with a peeler and leave the white pith behind. Pith can turn the syrup bitter and cloudy; the original objects to the grated-sugar method because it detracts from clearness, though it does not say why.
- Simmer, not boilTwenty minutes at a bare tremble is right. A hard boil drives off the volatile citrus oils.
- Juice goes in off the heatAdding the strained juice after the peel is lifted out preserves the fresh sharpness; cooked lemon juice tastes flat and slightly stewed.
- SweetnessThree tablespoons of sugar to a cup of water is a light syrup by modern standards, and the juice of a large lemon will make it distinctly tart. Taste and add sugar if the sauce is going onto something plain.
- The ginThe recipe gives no quantity; a tablespoon stirred in once the sauce is off the heat is a reasonable reading. Gin's botanicals sit naturally against lemon peel; more than that and the sauce tastes of the bottle.
- Yield and useAbout three-quarters of a cup, enough for four to six servings. Serve warm over steamed or baked puddings, or chilled over poached fruit; "sweet entremets" here means the sweet dishes of the later courses.
- KeepingIt should hold several days refrigerated in a sealed jar. Warm gently to loosen rather than reboiling.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877) takes its title from Auguste Kettner, the Soho restaurateur whose establishment on Church Street opened in the 1860s; the text itself is generally credited to the journalist and critic E. S. Dallas. Its character shows in an entry like this one: less a set of instructions than an argument about method, with a preference stated for clarity over convenience and a dry aside about the gin. Sugar-and-citrus syrups of this kind were common sauces for the English sweet course, poured over the boiled and baked puddings of the period, and the technique -- steeping pared zest in syrup, adding juice off the heat -- is still in use.