Gravy for the Heart.

Method.—Put the trimmings into a saucepan with the onion and water, and simmer gently while the heart is cooking.

Then melt the butter in a stewpan.

Mix in the flour smoothly; add the liquor strained.

Stir and boil three minutes; add the sauce, pepper and salt, and colouring.

Put the heart on a hot dish, remove the paper, and pour the gravy round it.

If preferred, the heart may be baked.

[SAUCES.]

Sauces are often failures, chiefly because they are not made of a proper consistency; and because the flour in them is not sufficiently cooked. It should be remembered that the starch in flour wants to be well boiled, otherwise it will be indigestible, and the sauce will have a raw, pasty taste. A sauce is not ready when it thickens, but should be boiled for quite three minutes. Its consistency should depend on what it is to be used for. Ordinary sauces, served in a sauce tureen, should be fairly thick; the proportions taken should be 1 oz. of butter; ¾ oz. of flour; ½ pint of milk. If the sauce is to be used to coat anything very thinly (new potatoes, for example), ½ oz. of flour, instead of ¾ oz., would be sufficient. If a sauce is required to entirely mask a small piece of fish, or chicken, &c., 1 oz. of flour should be used, with the proportions of milk and butter already given. Every ingredient should be properly weighed or measured. Carelessness in this respect is a mark of ignorance, and must occasion failures.

For making most of the ordinary sauces, the butter is melted first in a small stewpan, care being taken that it does not discolour; the flour is then mixed with it. If the mixing is not perfect, the sauce will be lumpy. The milk, stock, or water, is then poured in, and the sauce is stirred one way, until it has boiled three minutes. If cream is used, it is then added, and allowed just to boil in the sauce.

In making economical sauces, when less butter and flour are used (see [Economical Family Sauce]), the method employed is different. The flour is then mixed very smoothly with a little of the milk, water, or whatever is used, and then added to the remainder, which may be cold or boiling; but greater care is required to keep it smooth when the liquid is poured in boiling.