Very Fine Sweet Butter Sauce.—Wash four ounces of butter; squeeze it dry; beat it to a hard sauce with half a pound of powdered sugar; then put the yolks of two eggs in a cold bowl; stir it a minute, then add to it a little of the hard sauce; when well mixed add more, about a teaspoonful at a time; when the hard sauce is blended with the yolks of eggs, stir in by degrees a wineglass of brandy or rum. Keep on ice till wanted.
Vanilla Cream Sauce.—Put half a pint of fresh cream to boil, reserving a tablespoonful; mix this with a teaspoonful of flour; stir it into the cream, with a tablespoonful of sugar, when near boiling; when it boils, stir for five minutes or ten in a double boiler; then pour out the sauce, and stir in a small teaspoonful of vanilla and a few drops of extract of rose or a teaspoonful of rose-water. Observe that the rose is used to give a different tone to the vanilla, and not to impart its own flavor, therefore very little must be used.
Almond Sauce.—Dissolve four ounces of almond paste in half a pint of sweet cream by stirring in a double boiler (the almond paste should be grated first); when both are hot, add a tablespoonful of sugar and the yolk of an egg; stir till the egg thickens, then remove from the fire and serve.
XXXIII.
SALADS AND CHEESE DISHES.
Salad has come to form part of even the simplest dinners; and certainly cold meat and salad and excellent bread and butter make a meal by no means to be despised even by an epicure, while cold meat and bread and butter sound very untempting. The best dinner salad will perhaps always be white, crisp lettuce, with a simple French dressing, although, to those acquainted with it, escarole runs it hard, with its cool, watery ribs and crisp leaves. Elaborate salads, or those dressed with mayonnaise, are too heavy to form the latter part of an already sufficiently nourishing meal, but for luncheons and suppers the rich salad is invaluable.
Salad which is to be eaten with game or to form a course at dinner may be a crisp white cabbage lettuce, water-cress, Romaine lettuce, or that most delicious form of endive, escarole.
The dressing should be the simple French dressing, about which so much has been written and said, and which is so easy that perhaps it is one reason why so few make it well. There is nothing to remember beyond the proportions, and so many keep the quantity of oil, vinegar, and pepper and salt in mind, but the manner of using them seems of no consequence; but it is of so much consequence, if you do not want the vinegar on the leaves and the oil at the bottom of the salad bowl, that, well known as the formula is, I am going over it again with a few details that may help to fix the matter in mind.
In the first place it must be remembered that a wet leaf will repel oil, therefore the lettuce or other salad must be well dried before it is sent to table. This is best done by swinging it in a salad basket, and then spreading it between two cloths for a few minutes. Now it must be quite evident, if a leaf wet with water will refuse to retain oil, that one wet with vinegar will do the same; for this reason the leaves should be covered with oil before the vinegar is added, or the salad will be crude and very unlike what it should be if properly mixed in the following way: