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Chestnut Sauce (for Fowls or Turkey)
INGREDIENTS. lb. of chestnuts, 1/2 pint of white stock, 2 strips of lemonpeel, cayenne to taste, 1/4 pint of cream or milk. AVERAGE COST, 8d.
Peel off the outside skin of the chestnuts, and put them into boiling water for a few minutes; take off the thin inside peel, and put them into a saucepan, with the white stock and lemon-peer, and and let them simmer for 1 hour, or until the chestnuts are CHESTNUT. quite tender. Rub the whole through a hairsieve with a wooden spoon; add seasoning and the cream; let it just simmer, but not boil, and keep stirring all the time.
Serve very hot and quickly. If milk is used instead of cream, a very small quantity of thickening may be required; that, of course, the cook will determine.
TIME.-Altogether, nearly 2 hours.
SEASONABLE in winter.
A smooth chestnut purée loosened with stock and cream, meant to be spooned beside roast turkey or boiled fowl. It is straightforward once the peeling is done, but the quantity of chestnuts has not survived legibly in this text.
- The chestnut weightThe ingredient list gives only "lb. of chestnuts" with no figure; comparable Beeton sauces call for half a pound. Against 1/2 pint of stock and 1/4 pint of cream, somewhere between 1/2 lb and 1 lb of chestnuts in the shell should give a pouring consistency -- less will be thin, more will need extra liquid.
- Imperial measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so 1/2 pint is 10 fl oz (about 1 1/4 US cups) and 1/4 pint is 5 fl oz (a generous 1/2 cup).
- White stockThis is an unbrowned veal or chicken stock, made from bones not roasted first. Any light, unsalted chicken stock stands in; avoid dark or heavily reduced stock, which muddies the colour.
- PeelingScore the flat side of each shell, roast or boil briefly, then peel while hot. The thin inner pellicle is the part to remove: left on, it can make the finished sauce fibrous and slightly bitter, and sieving will only catch some of it.
- Do not let it boil after the cream goes inThis is the hinge. Once the cream is added the sauce is only warmed through, stirred constantly; boiling it will split the dairy and give a grainy sauce.
- Simmering timeAn hour is generous by modern standards. Peeled chestnuts in simmering stock are usually collapsing at 25–35 minutes; test with a knife rather than watching the clock.
- SievingA hair sieve and wooden spoon can be replaced by a food processor followed by a fine sieve, or by a food mill. Chestnuts are starchy, and a blender alone may leave the purée grainy.
- Lemon peelUse two pared strips of zest with no white pith. The recipe rubs "the whole" through the sieve, which will hold the strips back; lifting them out first does no harm.
- YieldDepends on the chestnut weight, which this text has lost, but enough sauce to serve alongside a roast bird for a table of six to eight. It thickens as it stands and can be let down with a little more stock or milk.
Chestnuts were a staple thickener in British and French kitchens long before cornflour was cheap: a starchy nut that pur tures to a velvety body without flour, and one that came into season exactly when turkeys and capons did. That seasonality explains the "seasonable in winter" note and the pairing with fowl u chestnut sauce, chestnut stuffing and chestnut soup all cluster in the December pages of Victorian cookery books. Mrs Beeton's household manuals give an average cost for most receipts, a habit aimed squarely at the mistress checking her cook's expenditure; eightpence here places this among the cheaper sauces of the table. The instruction to serve "very hot and quickly" reflects a real problem with starch-thick sauces in an era of long journeys between kitchen and dining room: they skin over and stiffen as they cool.