Melt the butter, and when it bubbles put in the flour, shaking the saucepan as you do so, and rub till smooth. Put in the hot milk, a little at a time, and stir and cook without boiling till all is smooth and free from lumps. Add the salt, and, if you choose, a little pepper.
Cream sauce is made exactly as is white sauce, but cream is used in place of milk. What is called thick white sauce is made by taking two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and only one cup of milk.
Creamed Oysters
1 pint oysters. 1 large cup of cream sauce.
Make the sauce of cream if you have it, and if not use a very heaping tablespoonful of butter in the white sauce. Keep this hot.
Drain off the oyster-juice and wash the oysters by holding them under the cold-water faucet. Strain the juice and put the oysters back in it, and put them on the fire and let them just simmer till the edges of the oysters curl; then drain them from the juice again and drop them in the sauce, and add a little more salt (celery-salt is nice if you have it), and just a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. You can serve the oysters on squares of buttered toast, or put them in a large dish, with sifted bread-crumbs over the top and tiny bits of butter, and brown in the oven. Or you can put them in small dishes as they are, and put a sprig of parsley in each dish.
Panned Oysters
Take the oysters from their juice, strain it, wash the oysters, and put them back in. Put them in a saucepan with a little salt,—about half a teaspoonful to a pint of oysters,—and a little pepper, and a piece of butter as large as the end of your thumb. Let them simmer till the edges curl, just as before, and put them on squares of hot buttered toast.
Scalloped Oysters
1 pint of oysters. 12 large crackers, or 1 cup of bread-crumbs. 1/2 cup of milk. The strained oyster-juice.