white sauce

White Sauce for Boiled Fowls

/ sandramervillehart

This looked like an easy recipe from an 1841 cookbook, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Take a tablespoon of butter and knead it about a teaspoon of flour into it. The flour quickly works into the butter.

Whip a teaspoon of cream with 1 egg yolk and set aside.

In a small saucepan, add ½ cup of milk with the butter. Heat over medium heat until the butter melts.

Add the egg mixture. Stirring constantly, heat until boiling. Let it boil a minute or two to cook the flour and egg.

This becomes a beautiful light and creamy sauce.

Delicious! My husband and I tried it on chicken. We both liked it, though I felt it needed a tiny bit of salt.

I will be making this again.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Hale, Sarah Josepha. Early American Cookery, Dover Publications, Inc., 1996.

 

 

1841 Seasonings for White Sauces, Fricassees, and Ragout

/ sandramervillehart

I found a Seasoning recipe for white sauces, ragouts, and fricassees in an 1841 cookbook.

Ragouts are highly-seasoned meat stews. White sauce, made from white roux and milk, is the base of other sauces. Fricassees are stewed meats or vegetables that are served in a white sauce.

Select a small mixing bowl.

1 tablespoon white pepper

1 tablespoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon mace

1 tablespoon dried lemon peel

Mix ingredients together.

Store in closed container until needed in white sauces, fricassees, and ragouts.

To try out the seasoning blend, I made baked macaroni and cheese using the Basic White Sauce Recipe from Taste of Home. I prepared the sauce as directed and then added cheese. I added about ¼ teaspoon of the seasoning mixture to the sauce and baked as usual.

The extra flavors changed the dish enough that it did not taste like macaroni and cheese to me, but wasn’t bad.

It’s also worth a try in stews, which often benefit from extra flavor.

I’d love to hear if you try this recipe in your cooking.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Gelzer, Lois. Taste of Home, 2018/01/21 https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/basic-white-sauce.

Hale, Sarah Josepha. Early American Cookery: “The Good Housekeeper” 1841, Dover Publications, Inc., 1996.