The fennel should be young and fresh. Take a large handful, or more, and having washed it clean, strip the leaves from the stems, and boil it till quite tender. Put it into a sieve, and press the water well from it. Mince it very small, and stir it into drawn butter.
It is served up with boiled fish.
Instead of melted butter, you may put the fennel into veal gravy, thickened with butter dredged with flour.
SAGE AND ONION SAUCE.—
Take a bunch of fresh sage leaves. Wash and drain them. Pick them from the stems, and put them to boil in a small sauce-pan, with just water enough to cover them. Boil them fast about ten minutes. Take them out, and press them in a sieve to drain them dry. Then mince or chop them small. Have ready two onions, boiled tender in another sauce-pan; chop them also, and mix them well with the minced sage. While warm, mix in a small bit of nice butter—season with pepper. Put this sauce into a little tureen, and serve it up with roast goose, roast duck, or roast pork, that has been stuffed with potato, bread, or other stuffing. The sage and onion sauce is for those who prefer their flavor to any other seasoning for those dishes.
This sauce will be greatly improved if moistened with some of the gravy of the duck or goose.
FINE ONION SAUCE.—
Peel some nice mild onions, and boil them in plenty of milk, skimming them well. When done, take them out of the milk, (saving it,) and slice them very thin, cutting the slices across, so as to make the pieces of onion very small. Return them to the sauce-pan of milk, (adding some fresh butter dredged with flour;) season them with powdered mace or nutmeg, and give the onions another boil, till they are soft enough to mash, and to thicken the milk all through. Eat this sauce with steaks, cutlets, rabbits, or chickens.