[194-†] A great deal of care is to be taken to watch the time of putting in the water: if it is poured in too soon, the gravy will not have its true flavour and colour: and if it be let alone till the meat sticks to the pan, it will get a burnt taste.
[195-*] Truffles, morells, and mushrooms, catchups and wines, &c. are added by those who are for the extreme of haut goût.
[195-†] The general rule is to put in about a pint of water to a pound of meat, if it only simmers very gently.
[195-‡] A tamis is a worsted cloth, sold at the oil shops, made on purpose for straining sauces: the best way for using it is for two people to twist it contrary ways. This is a better way of straining sauce than through a sieve, and refines it much more completely.
[197-*] By this method, it is said, an ingenious cook long deceived a large family, who were all fond of weak mutton broth. Mushroom gravy, or catchup ([No. 439]), approaches the nature and flavour of meat gravy, more than any vegetable juice, and is the best substitute for it in maigre soups and extempore sauces, that culinary chemistry has yet produced.
[200-*] See “L’Art de Cuisinier,” par A. Beauvillier, Paris, 1814, p. 68. “I have learned by experience, that of all the fats that are used for frying, the pot top which is taken from the surface of the broth and stock-pot is by far the best.”
[203-*] To make pease pottage, double the quantity. Those who often make pease soup should have a mill, and grind the pease just before they dress them; a less quantity will suffice, and the soup will be much sooner made.
[204-*] If the liquor is very salt, the pease will never boil tender. Therefore, when you make pease soup with the liquor in which salted pork or beef has been boiled, tie up the pease in a cloth, and boil them first for an hour in soft water.
[204-†] Half a drachm of celery-seed, pounded fine, and put into the soup a quarter of an hour before it is finished, will flavour three quarts.
[204-‡] Some put in dried mint rubbed to fine powder; but as every body does not like mint, it is best to send it up on a plate. See pease powder, [No. 458], essence of celery, [No. 409], and Nos. [457] and [459].