Put into a sauce-boat half a glassful of good vinegar, a strong pinch of powdered sugar, a little cayenne pepper, and two heavy pinches of finely chopped fresh mint leaves; let them infuse for half an hour.
Another way.-Mix in a saucepan one gill of good vinegar with the same quantity of water; add to it two spoonfuls of powdered or brown sugar; boil it up once, and then set it away to get cold; put in some finely shredded fresh mint leaves.
Two versions of the same thing: a raw steeped sauce and a milder cooked one. Both are minutes of work, and both improve with more standing time than Ranhofer allows.
Mint sauce is an English item in an otherwise thoroughly French book, and Ranhofer gives it under its French name, sauce à la menthe. The pairing of mint with lamb and mutton is old in Britain — mint had long been grown as a kitchen and physic herb, and a sharp sweet-sour condiment for fatty roast meat belongs to the same family of thinking as apple sauce with pork. A New York restaurant serving saddle of lamb to English-speaking diners would have wanted it on the list. The two methods given here mark a split that still exists: one sauce is steeped raw, the other has its vinegar and sugar boiled first.