Plain burned sugar (caramel) may be used to color soups and sauces, thus saving the trouble of browning the flour or butter. It is also used as a flavoring for sweets. Put one cup of sugar, dry, into an iron saucepan. Stand it over a hot fire, and stir continually until it is reduced to a dark brown liquid. When it begins to burn and smoke, add hastily a cup of boiling water, stir and cook until a thin syrup-like mixture is formed. It must not be too thick. Bottle, and it is ready for use, and will keep any length of time.
Kitchen Bouquet
Add one chopped onion and a teaspoonful of celery seed to one cup of dry sugar, and then proceed as for ordinary browning. Strain and bottle. A very good mixture under this name can be purchased at the grocers.
Mushroom Sauce
Where just a few mushrooms are left over, either fresh or canned, they may be chopped fine and added to a brown sauce and served with steak or beef; or they may be chopped fine and added to a cream sauce and served with chicken or sweetbreads.
Cold Meat Sauces
It is the fashion when one is serving cold meat to pass with it some condiment like Worcestershire sauce, mushroom, walnut or tomato catsup. Of course, these used in any great quantity are more or less injurious. A number of little left-overs in the house may be used to take their place, adding zest to the meat, and are more economical and more wholesome.
Chopped Tomato Sauce
Peel a good-sized tomato, cut it into halves and press out the seeds; chop the flesh of the tomato fine, add a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, or, if you have it, a little sweet pepper chopped fine; you may add also a little celery chopped very fine, or celery seed, and a teaspoonful of onion juice; rub your spoon with a clove of garlic, and mix the ingredients thoroughly; add a teaspoonful of lemon juice and dish. Pass and use as ordinary catsup.
Grated Cucumber Sauce