Onion Sauce (pauvre homme).—(a) Peel and parboil some onions, drain, and cut them in quarters, put them into a stewpan with sufficient well-flavoured white stock to cover them; keep on the lid, and simmer gently until quite tender, pass them through a sieve; add to the pulp sufficient milk, cream, or béchamel sauce as will be necessary to make the sauce; stir over the fire until quite hot, add seasoning of pepper and salt if required, and it is ready.
(b) Parboil some onions a few minutes, mince them roughly and put them into a saucepan, with plenty of butter, a pinch of sugar and pepper and salt to taste; let them cook slowly, so that they do not take colour, and add 1 tablespoonful flour. When they are quite tender pass them through a hair sieve. Dilute the onion pulp with sufficient milk to make the sauce of the desired consistency; add a tablespoonful of Parmesan cheese, stir well, make it hot, and serve.
(c) Boil some onions in milk, with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. When quite done pass them through a sieve. Put some butter and flour into a saucepan; when the butter is melted and well mixed with the flour put in the pulp of the onions, and add either milk or cream, stirring the sauce on the fire until it is of the desired consistency.
Orange Sauce (Bigarade).—Pare off, as thinly as possible, the yellow rind of 2 Seville oranges; cut it into very thin shreds, and boil them in water for 5 minutes. Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan, add to it 1 tablespoonful flour, and stir until it begins to colour; add a gill of stock, pepper and salt to taste, the juice of the oranges, and a good pinch of sugar; then put in the boiled rinds, stir the sauce until it boils, and serve.
Oyster Sauce (aux Huîtres).—(a) Parboil the oysters in their own liquor, beard them, and reserve all the liquor. Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan, add a little flour, the oyster liquor, and enough milk to make as much sauce as is wanted. Put in a blade of mace and a bay leaf tied together, pepper and salt to taste, and the least dust of cayenne. Let the sauce come to the boil, add the oysters, and as soon as they are quite hot remove the mace and bay leaf. Stir in a few drops of lemon juice, and serve.
(b) To make this in perfection is really one of the simplest operations in cookery Open 24 oysters; scald them, beard and wash them, and strain the liquor from them very carefully. Put all this into a stewpan of rich melted butter; let the oysters get thoroughly hot through; add the juice of a lemon, and serve.
(c) Mock.—1 teacupful good gravy, 1 of milk, 3 dessertspoons anchovy sauce, 2 of mushroom ketchup, 2 oz. butter, 1 teaspoonful pounded mace, whole black pepper. All to be boiled until thoroughly mixed.
Parsley (au Persil).—(a) Pick the parsley while quite green, wash it in cold water to remove all dust, &c., cut off all the stalks, and lay it on paper before the fire till quite crisp. It is never so good a colour if dried in the oven. Crumble it in your hands, then pass it through a wire sieve, which will retain all the stalks and let the parsley go through; put it into wide-mouthed bottles, and cork tightly. When required for use, boil it with a little soda for 5 minutes.
(b) And Butter.—Melt 1 oz. butter, and add to it 1 dessertspoonful flour, salt, and white pepper to taste; stir on the fire for 2 minutes, add a little more than 1 tumblerful boiling water by degrees, and a small quantity of parsley, blanched and finely chopped; keep on stirring for 5 minutes, but do not let the sauce boil.
(c) Fried.—Pick out a number of sprigs as much of a size as possible, hold them together by the stalks, and shake them repeatedly in cold water, so as to thoroughly wash them; then shake out the water from them, and dry them thoroughly and effectually in a cloth, cut off the stalks close, put the parsley in the frying basket, and dip it for about a minute in boiling hot lard or oil, never ceasing the while to shake the basket. Turn out the parsley on a napkin in the screen in front of the fire to drain. Parsley should be fried just before it is wanted.