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Mushroom Brown Sauce
For a pint and a half of sauce use a quart of rich consomme, one-half pound of fresh mushrooms, a baked sour apple, six tablespoons of butter, five of flour, a slight grating of nutmeg, two level teaspoons of salt and one-half teaspoon of pepper. Put the butter into a stewpan and place it on the fire; when it begins to brown, add the flour and stir until the mixture is dark-brown. Draw the stewpan back to a cool place , stir until the contents are slightly cooled, and then gradually add the stock. Stir until it boils, put in the seasoning, the baked apple and one-half cup of chopped mushrooms, and set back where the sauce will just bubble at one side of the stewpan, for two hours. At the end of that time skim off the butter, and strain the sauce into another stewpan. Add the remainder of the mushrooms and three tablespoons of consommé. The mushrooms should be nicely pared and cut into small pieces, and they should simmer for ten minutes in the hot sauce.
This is a classic brown sauce built on a dark roux and a long, lazy reduction, with an unusual apple in it. Nothing here is difficult, but the roux and the two-hour simmer are the whole sauce.
- YieldA pint and a half is about 3 cups finished sauce, from a starting quart of stock.
- The roux is the sauceButter and flour must go past blond to a genuine dark brown before the stock goes in. There is slightly more butter than flour here, and the surplus is skimmed off later. Draw the pan off the heat and let the roux cool slightly before adding liquid or it will lump.
- "A cool place" and "one side of the stewpan"Both phrases describe the cooler edge of a coal range. On a modern hob, use your lowest burner setting, so the surface barely trembles for the full two hours.
- The baked sour appleBake a tart cooking apple, Granny Smith or Bramley, whole until collapsing, then scoop out the flesh and discard skin and core. It contributes acid and body, and its solids are removed at the straining.
- ConsommeConsomme is a clarified strong broth; a well-made brown beef or veal stock is the practical modern stand-in. If you use commercial stock, taste before adding the two teaspoons of salt, since the sauce concentrates over the two hours.
- Paring mushroomsVictorian and Edwardian cooks peeled field mushrooms because the caps were tough and gritty. Cultivated white or cremini mushrooms need only wiping and trimming; peel nothing.
- Two mushroom additionsThe first half cup goes in for the long simmer purely for flavour and is strained out. The rest are added at the end and given ten minutes only, so they keep their shape and bite.
- SkimmingAfter two hours the surplus butter will have risen in a clear layer. Skim it before straining, or the sauce will taste greasy and refuse to coat.
This follows the lines of sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce of French kitchen practice: a dark roux, good brown stock, long slow reduction, then straining and a garnish. The Butterick company was a pattern and magazine publisher. The method is written for the cooler edge of a coal range rather than a professional stove. The baked sour apple is the domestic touch, contributing fruit acid and body. Mushrooms in brown sauce were often treated as a luxury flavouring rather than a vegetable, and the instruction to pare them reflects the coarser field mushrooms of the period.