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Transparent Sauce
Mix one tablespoonful of corn starch with one teacupful of sugar in a saucepan, then stir in one-half pint of boiling water, and add half a lemon cut into slices and a small lump of butter. Stir the sauce over the fire, and boil until transparent. It is then ready for serving with fritters.
A clear lemon-sugar sauce thickened with cornstarch, meant to be spooned over hot fritters. It comes together in about five minutes, and the only real skill is knowing when to stop.
- The hinge: cook until it clearsCornstarch turns a starchy, chalky white when it first thickens and then goes glossy and translucent as the granules fully swell. That change is the doneness cue in the title — pull the pan the moment the sauce looks clear, since prolonged boiling breaks the starch down and the sauce will thin again.
- A teacupfulPeriod teacups run roughly 6 fluid ounces, so about 3/4 cup of sugar (5 to 5 1/2 oz). This is a sweet sauce by design; if you want it less so, 1/2 cup works with the same thickening.
- Half a pintOne cup of boiling water. With a single tablespoon of cornstarch to a cup of liquid the result is a pourable syrup, not a pudding — that is intended.
- Mix dry firstRubbing the cornstarch into the sugar before any liquid goes in helps keep it from lumping; the original orders it that way. Add the boiling water in a thin stream while stirring.
- The lemonSliced lemon infuses peel oil and juice at once. Fish the slices out before serving, or the pith will turn the sauce bitter as it sits; a strip of zest plus a tablespoon of juice stirred in off the heat gives a cleaner result.
Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, was the compiler of this 1896 book.