ent water to enable you to boil them, and
let the water boil away till very little is left. Now rub this through a
wire sieve and add it to a quart of milk in which a couple of bay-leaves
have been boiled. Thicken the soup with a little white roux, add a
suspicion of nutmeg, and also, if possible, a little cream. Flavour with
pepper and salt. Serve fried or toasted bread with the soup.




CHAPTER II.

SAUCES.


SAUCE ALLEMANDE.--Take a pint of butter sauce--(_see_ BUTTER SAUCE)--and
add to it four yolks of eggs. In order to do this you must beat up the
yolks separately in a basin and add the hot butter sauce gradually,
otherwise the yolks of eggs will curdle and the sauce will be spoilt. In
fact, it must be treated exactly like custard, and in warming up the sauce
it is often a good plan, if you have no _bain-marie_, to put the sauce in a
jug and place the jug in a saucepan of boiling water. The sauce should be
flavoured with a little essence of mushroom if possible. Essence of
mushroom can be made from the trimmings of mushrooms, but mushroom ketchup
must not be used on account of the colour. Essence of mushroom can be made
by placing the trimmings of mushrooms in a saucepan, stewing them gently,
and extracting the flavour. The large black mushrooms, however, are not
suited. In addition to this essence of mushroom, a little lemon
juice--allowing the juice of half a lemon to every pint, should be added to
the sauce, as well as a slight suspicion of nutmeg, a pint of sauce
requiring about a dozen grates of a nutmeg. A little cream is a great
improvement to this sauce, but is not absolutely necessary. The sauce
should be perfectly smooth. Should it therefore contain any lumps, which
is not unfrequently the case in butter sauce, pass the sauce through a
sieve with a wooden spoon and then put it by in a _bain-marie_, or warm it
up in a jug as directed.


ALMOND SAUCE.--This is suitable for puddings. The simplest way of making
it is to make, say half a pint of butter sauce, or,