FINE PINK SAUCE.—
Take a pint of excellent port wine, the juice and grated yellow rinds of four large lemons, two dozen blades of mace and a large nutmeg, broken up; with a quarter of an ounce of prepared cochineal, or a small tea-spoonful of alkanet chips. Add a table-spoonful of fresh salad oil. Mix the whole well in a wide-mouthed glass jar with a lid. Let the ingredients infuse a fortnight; stirring it several times a day. Then strain it, pour it through a funnel into small bottles, and seal the corks. It will give a fine pink color to drawn butter. Eat it with any sort of fish or game.
Alkanet produces a much finer color than cochineal, but it must unite with some substance of an oily nature to give out its color to advantage. It is very cheap, and very beautiful, and to be had at the druggist's. Infuse it tied in a thin muslin bag.
WINE SAUCE FOR VENISON OR GAME.—
Take the half of a sixpenny loaf of bread. Cut off all the crust. Put the crumb (or soft part) into a bowl, and pour on sufficient good port wine to steep it. Soak the bread in the wine till dissolved. Then add two heaped table-spoonsful of fresh butter, and two heaped spoonsful of sugar; seasoning with powdered mace and nutmeg, and the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon. Beat all together till very smooth. Put it into a sauce-pan, and give it one boil up; taking it off as soon as it comes to a boil. Send it to table hot. It is a fine company sauce for venison, or hare, or any sort of game.
FINE PUDDING SAUCE.—
Take a large half-pint cup of the best fresh butter, and the same quantity of powdered loaf-sugar. Put them together in an earthen pan, and beat them to a light thick cream. Then mix a jill or wine-glass of boiling water, and a large wine-glass of the best brandy, with the grated yellow rind and juice of a large lemon or orange; and a small nutmeg, grated. Mix these ingredients, gradually, with the beaten butter and sugar; and transfer the sauce to a small tureen, putting a spoon or ladle into it.
If designed for sauce to a plum-pudding or any other large one, you will require a pint of butter, a pint of sugar, half a pint of boiling water with half a pint of brandy, two lemons or oranges, and a large nutmeg, or two small ones. Divide the sauce in two tureens. A boiled pudding for company requires no finer sauce than this.