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Lemon White Sauce for Boiled Fowls
301. Put the peel of a small lemon, cut very thin, into a pint of sweet rich cream, with a sprig of lemon thyme, and ten white pepper- Simmer gently till it tastes well of the lemon; then strain it; and thicken it with a quarter of a pound of butter, and a dessertspoonful of flour rubbed in it. Boil it up; then pour the juice of the lemon strained into it, stirring it well. Dish the chickens, and then mix a little white gravy, quite hot, with the cream, but do not boil them together; add salt to the taste.
A rich Victorian cream sauce built on infusion rather than roux, meant to be spooned over a plainly boiled chicken. The one thing to get right is the order of operations at the end: acid goes into hot cream late, and the finished sauce is never boiled again once the gravy joins it.
- MeasuresThe pint is an imperial one, 20 fl oz or about 2.5 cups. A dessertspoonful is 2 teaspoons, so the thickening is a quarter pound of butter worked with roughly 2 teaspoons of flour ather than a conventional roux \b— the sauce stays loose and glossy rather than stiff.
- Peel, not pith"Cut very thin" is the whole instruction. Pare the zest with a vegetable peeler and scrape off any white; pith infused in hot cream turns the sauce bitter in a way no amount of lemon juice will hide.
- Keeping the cream from splittingSimmer gently means barely trembling, and the lemon juice should go in off a hard boil, stirred steadily. A high-fat double or heavy cream tolerates the acid best; thinner creams such as single cream or half-and-half are much more likely to curdle.
- Lemon thymeCommon thyme plus an extra strip of peel is the nearest substitute. Use one small sprig only \b— it should sit behind the lemon, not beside it.
- White gravyThis means the pale, unbrowned cooking liquor from the boiled fowl, or a light chicken or veal stock. Have it properly hot before it meets the cream, since the two are combined off the heat and will not be brought back to a boil.
- PeppercornsWhite peppercorns are infused whole and strained out, which is why the count is given rather than a ground quantity. Ground white pepper stirred in at the end tastes coarser and clouds the sauce.
- YieldAbout 2.5 cups of finished sauce, before the gravy is added. It reheats over hot water but not over direct heat.