Obs.—As we have already said in the previous receipt, it is customary to froth sweet sauces in Germany with a small machine made like a chocolate-mill. Two silver forks fastened together at the handles may be used instead on an emergency, or the sauce may be whisked to the proper state, like the one which precedes it.
Great care must be taken not to allow these sauces to curdle. The safer plan is to put any preparation of the kind into a white jar, and to place it over the fire in a pan of boiling water, and then to stir or mill it until it is sufficiently thickened: the jar should not be half filled, and it should be large enough to allow the sauce to be worked easily. The water should not reach to within two or three inches of the brim. We give these minute details for inexperienced cooks.
RED CURRANT OR RASPBERRY SAUCE. (GOOD.)
Measure half a pint of sound red currants after they have been stripped from the stalks; wash them, should they be dusty, and drain all the water from them. Have ready a syrup, made with three ounces of sugar in lumps, and the third of a pint of water, boiled gently together for five minutes; put in the currants, and stew them for ten minutes; strain off the juice, of which there will be nearly or quite half a pint, through a lawn sieve or folded muslin; heat it afresh, and pour it boiling to a small spoonful of arrow-root which has been very smoothly mixed with a tablespoonful of cold water, being careful to stir it briskly while the juice is being added; give the sauce a minute’s boil to render it transparent, and mask the pudding with it (or, in other words, pour it equally over it, so as to cover the entire surface); or serve it in a tureen. A few raspberries may be added in their season, to flavour this preparation; but if quite ripe, they must be thrown into the syrup without having been washed, two or three minutes after the currants have been put into it. A delicious sauce may be made entirely from raspberries as above, allowing a larger proportion of the fruit, as it yields less juice than the currant.
The proportions directed in this receipt are quite sufficient for a pudding of moderate size, but they can easily be increased when required.
COMMON RASPBERRY-SAUCE.
Put three ounces of sugar broken into small lumps, and a wineglassful and a half of water into a small stewpan, and boil them for four or five minutes. Add half a pint of fresh ripe raspberries, well mashed with the back of a spoon. Mix them with the syrup, and boil them for six or seven minutes; the sauce should then be quite smooth and clear. The quantity of it with these proportions will not be large, but can be increased at pleasure.
Obs.—We have generally found that the most simple, and consequently the most refreshing fruit-sauces have been much liked by the persons who have partaken of them; and they are, we think, preferable to the foreign ones—German principally—to which wine and cinnamon are commonly added, and which are often composed of dried fruit. Their number can easily be augmented by an intelligent cook; and they can be varied through all the summer and autumnal months with the fruit in season at the time.
SUPERIOR FRUIT-SAUCES FOR SWEET PUDDINGS.
Clear rich fruit syrups, such as the Sirop de Groseilles of Chapter [XXIX.] or those from which cherries, apricots, damsons, and other plums, are taken when they have been prepared in them for drying, make the finest possible sauces for sweet puddings. A pound of ripe Morella cherries, for example, pricked separately with a large needle, then slowly heated and simmered from seven to ten minutes with three quarters of a pound of castor-sugar, and allowed to become cold in their juice, will be excellent if laid on dishes and slowly dried; and the syrup from them will be a delicious accompaniment to a pudding (or to plain boiled rice); and it will also afford a most agreeable summer beverage mixed with water, slightly iced, or not. Other varieties of these sauces are made by stewing the fruit tender without sugar, then rubbing it through a sieve, and diluting it with wine; or simply mixing and boiling it with sufficient sugar to render it sweet and clear.