Cream Sauce (Make same as Thin White Sauce)

A cross-reference entry rather than a standalone method: the sauce is a basic roux-thickened white sauce with cream standing in for milk. Everything hinges on cooking the flour in the butter before any liquid goes in.

• The method the entry assumesMelt the butter, stir in the flour and let the paste bubble for a minute or two without colouring, then add the liquid gradually, stirring constantly, and simmer until it thickens and loses any raw-flour taste. Roughly 5 minutes of simmering is enough.
• The salt measurementThe salt quantity in this text has lost its fraction and reads as a whole number. For a cup of liquid, about 1/4 teaspoon is the conventional amount in this book; season to taste at the end.
• Thin, medium, thickFarmer works to a ladder of proportions per cup of liquid: roughly 1 tablespoon each butter and flour for thin, 2 for medium (the quantities given here), and 3 or more for thick, with a still stiffer version used for croquettes. The 2-tablespoon ratio gives a sauce that coats a spoon and pours slowly.
• Cream in 1900Cream of this period was gravity-separated and varied a good deal in richness; much of it was in the range we would now call light or single cream. Light cream is the nearest modern equivalent; heavy cream will make a noticeably richer, thicker sauce.
• ScorchingDairy sauces catch on the bottom of a pan easily. Use a heavy-bottomed saucepan over moderate heat and keep a flat whisk or wooden spoon moving across the base.
• LumpsWarm liquid added in a thin stream to a hot roux, with steady stirring, is much less likely to lump. If it does lump, press the sauce through a fine sieve.
• YieldAbout 1 cup, enough to sauce fish or vegetables for four. It thickens as it cools; thin it with a spoonful of cream or milk when reheating.