When sauces are finished with eggs, use only the yolks, and mix them first with but a spoonful or two of the sauce; mix them off the fire. Set on the pan again for two or three moments, but do not let it boil after the eggs are in.
BECHAMEL.
Put into a sauce-pan a quarter of a pound of butter sprinkled with flour, three or four onions, and a carrot cut small, a little parsley, and a dozen mushrooms. Set it over the fire until the butter is melted, and then add three table-spoonfuls of flour stirred into a pint of cream or rich milk, with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to your taste. Stir it till it boils; then reduce the fire, and let the bechamel stew gently for three quarters of an hour. When it is done, strain it, and then stir in the yolks of three eggs.
ANOTHER BECHAMEL.
Cut into dice, or small square pieces, half a pound of bacon or ham, a carrot, a turnip, and two onions. Put them into a sauce-pan, with two large spoonfuls of veal-dripping; add a little butter (about two ounces), and two large spoonfuls of flour. Moisten it with boiling water, or broth. Add nutmeg, cloves, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper to your taste; also a laurel-leaf. Let it stew for an hour. Strain it, and before you serve it up, squeeze in a little lemon-juice.
DRAWN BUTTER.
Put into a small pan a table-spoonful of flour and a tumbler of water, with salt to your taste, and a little pepper. Stir it till it boils. Then withdraw it from the fire, and add two ounces of butter and a few drops of cold water, with a little lemon-juice, or vinegar. Set it on the stove, or near the fire, and keep it warm till it is wanted.
You may thicken it while boiling with mushrooms, cut small; or after it is done with hard eggs chopped fine, pickled cucumbers chopped, or capers.
MELTED BUTTER—another way.
Put into a sauce-pan a quarter of a pound of butter. When quite melted over the fire, throw in a large spoonful of flour, and add a half pint of boiling water, and salt to your taste. Boil it a few minutes, and then put in a tea-spoonful of cold water. If intended as sauce for a pudding, stir in at the last a glass of white wine, and half a grated nutmeg.