It’s often hard to give cooked meat a good flavor, especially if it’s lean. Although it’s easy to open a packet or jar of gravy or other prepared sauces, I don’t like eating preservatives and artificial ingredients. When I make my own sauce, I know what ingredients are going into it. And if you don’t eat much meat, you might experiment and try some of these sauces on vegetables.

RECIPES BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

SAUCES
All sauces should be sent to table as hot as possible, for nothing is more unsightly than the surface of a sauce garnished with grease on the top.

ONION SAUCE
Work together until light a heaping tablespoon of flour and half a cup of butter, then gradually add two cups of boiling milk. Stir constantly until it come to a boil, then stir into that four tender boiled onions that have been chopped fine. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with boiled veal, poultry, or mutton.

MINT SAUCE
This is only used for roast lamb in the spring. When the lambs are grown into sheep, the mint is too old for sauce. But they harmonize very pleasantly when both are young.

Take a large bunch of fine fresh green mint that has been washed well. Strip the leaves from the stems and mince them small. Put it into a pint bowl and mix with it gradually some of the best cider vinegar. This sauce must not be the least liquid, but as thick as horse-radish sauce or thicker. Make it very sweet with the best brown sugar. Mix it well, and transfer to a small tureen or a little deep dish with a teaspoon in it. Serve it up always with roast lamb, putting a teaspoonful on the rim of your plate.

A quart or more of mint sauce, made as above, but with a larger proportion of sugar and vinegar, will keep very well for several weeks in a jar well corked.

HORSE-RADISH
Wash clean some roots of horse-radish, wipe them dry, and scrape off the outside. Then grate the sticks of horse-radish with a large grater. Put some of the grated horse-radish into a large saucer or small deep plate. Moisten it with good cider vinegar, but do not put so much vinegar as will render it liquid. Send it to table with roast beef or mutton.

SHARP BROWN SAUCE
Put in a saucepan one tablespoon chopped onion, three tablespoons good cider vinegar, six tablespoons water, three of tomato catsup, a little pepper and salt, and one-half cup of melted butter, in which is stirred a tablespoon of sifted flour. Put all together and boil until it thickens. This is most excellent with boiled meats, fish and poultry.

BECHAMEL SAUCE
Put three tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Add three tablespoons sifted flour, one-fourth teaspoon nutmeg, ten peppercorns, and a teaspoon of salt. Beat all well together, then add to this three slices of onion, two slices of carrot, two sprigs of parsley, two of thyme, a bay leaf and half a dozen mushrooms cut up. Moisten the whole with a pint of stock or water and a cup of sweet cream. Set it on the stove and cook slowly for half an hour, watching closely that it does not burn. Then strain through a sieve. Most excellent with roast veal, meats and fish.

PARSLEY SAUCE
Strip from the stalks the leaves of some fresh green parsley; allow plenty of it. Chop it slightly; and while the drawn butter* is hot, stir into it the parsley, till the butter looks very green. Serve it up with boiled fowls, rabbits, or boiled fish. The appearance of parsley sauce will be much improved by stirring in some spinach juice. The whole will be then a fine green.

*drawn butter – butter melted until it foams and the solids sink. Foam is skimmed off and the solids discarded, leaving clear butter.

MAITRE D’HOTEL SAUCE
Make a teacup of drawn butter, add the juice of a lemon, two tablespoons minced onion, three tablespoons chopped parsley, a teaspoon of powdered thyme or summer savory, a pinch of cayenne and salt. Simmer over the fire and stir well. Excellent with all kinds of fish.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE
Beat one-half teacup* of butter to a cream, add the yolks of two eggs one by one; then the juice of half a lemon, a speck of cayenne pepper and half a teaspoon of salt. Beat all thoroughly, place the bowl in in a saucepan of boiling water. Beat with an egg-beater until it begins to thicken which will be in about a minute. Then add one-half cup boiling water, beating all the time. Stir until it begins to thicken like soft custard, and stir a few minutes after taking from the fire. Be careful not to cook it too long. This is very nice with baked fish.

*teacup – same as a jill or gill; four ounces (1/2 cup) in the U.S. and five ounces in the U.K.

CURRANT JELLY SAUCE
Take three tablespoon butter, one onion, one bay leaf, one sprig of celery, two tablespoons vinegar, one-half cup of currant jelly, one tablespoon flour, one pint of stock, salt, and pepper. Cook the butter and onion until the latter begins to color. Add the flour and herbs. Stir until brown; add the stock, and simmer twenty minutes. Strain and skim off all the fat. Add the jelly and stir over the fire until it is melted. Serve with game.

SAUCE FOR SALMON AND OTHER FISH
Take one cup of milk heated to a boil and thickened with a tablespoon of cornstarch previously wet up with cold water, the liquor from the salmon, one tablespoon of butter, one raw egg beaten light, the juice of half a lemon, and mace and cayenne pepper to taste. Add the egg to thickened milk when you have stirred in the butter and liquor. Take from the fire, season and let it stand in hot water three minutes, covered. Lastly put in lemon juice and turn out immediately. Pour it all over and around the salmon.

CELERY SAUCE
Split and cut up into short slips a bunch of celery, having taken off the green leaves from the tops. The celery must have been well washed and laid an hour in cold water. Take a pint of milk, and cut up in it one-fourth pound of fresh butter that has been well dredged with flour. Set it over the fire in a saucepan, and add the celery gradually; also three or four blades of mace broken up. Boil all slowly together till the celery is quite soft and tender, but not dissolved. The green tops of the celery, (strewed* in, when it begins to simmer,) will improve the flavor. Celery sauce is served up with boiled turkey, boiled fowls, and with any sort of fresh fish, boiled or fried.

*strew – to scatter or spread untidily over a surface or area.

OYSTER SAUCE
Take a pint of oysters and heat them in their own liquor long enough to come to a boil, or until they begin to ruffle. Skim out the oysters into a warm dish, put into the liquor a teacup of milk or cream, two tablespoons of cold butter, and a pinch of cayenne and salt. Thicken with a tablespoon of flour stirred to a paste, boil up and then add the oysters. Oyster sauce is used for fish, boiled turkey, chickens and boiled white meats of most kinds.

BREAD SAUCE
Take one cup of stale bread crumbs, one onion, two ounces of butter, pepper and salt, and a little mace. Cut the onion fine, and boil it in milk till quite soft. Then strain the milk on to the stale bread crumbs and let it stand an hour. Put it in a saucepan with the boiled onion, pepper, salt and mace. Give it a boil, and serve in a sauce tureen. This sauce can also be used for grouse, and is very nice. Roast partridges are nice served with bread crumbs, fried brown in butter, with cranberry or currant jelly laid beside them in the platter.

TOMATO SAUCE
Take a quart can of tomatoes, put it over the fire in a stew-pan. Put in one slice of onion and two cloves, a little pepper and salt and boil about twenty minutes. Then remove from the fire and strain it through a sieve. Now melt in another pan an ounce of butter, and as it melts, sprinkle in a tablespoon of flour. Stir it until it browns and froths a little. Mix the tomato pulp with it, and it is ready for the table. Excellent for mutton, chops, roast beef, etc.

CIDER APPLE SAUCE
Boil four quarts of new cider until it is reduced to two quarts. Then put into it enough pared and quartered apples to fill the kettle. Let the whole stew over a moderate fire four hours; add cinnamon if liked. This sauce is very fine with almost any kind of meat.

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Do You Have any Special Sauces You Prepare? Please Leave a Comment Below.

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