SAUCE, a flavouring or seasoning for food, usually in a liquid or semi-liquid state, either served separately or mixed with the dish. The preparation of suitable sauces is one of the essentials of good cookery. The word comes through the Fr. from the Lat. salsa, salted or pickled food (saline, to season or sprinkle with sal, salt). The colloquial use of "saucy," impertinent, "cheeky" is an obvious transference from the tartness or pungency of a sauce. Hot Sauces.—These may be divided into White and Brown, and from them many hundreds of sauces are made. Variations from a plain white sauce are egg sauce, onion sauce, anchovy sauce, parsley sauce, caper sauce, oyster sauce, celery sauce, etc. A blending of fat and flour, known in the culinary world as a roux, is the foundation of nearly every sauce. The fats used may be butter, oils, clarified fat, a blend of lard and butter, or margar ine, or dripping. The fat is first melted and sufficient flour is stirred into it to absorb it ; equal quantities of fat and flour are usual. Liquids for white sauces may be water, milk and water, milk, white stock, milk and stock. Cream may be added if liked, also beaten eggs and any flavouring such as sherry, vanilla, vinegar, lemon juice. Brown stock, water, or stock and water, are the liquids used for brown and fawn sauces. Lumpy sauces are caused by insufficient stirring which causes unequal bursting and thickening of the starch grains in the flour. Sauces must boil for
8 to io minutes. Espagnole, Béchamel and Veloute are white sauces used as a foundation in many variations.
Cold Sauces.—(I) The Mayonnaise Class. A simple mayon naise is made from raw yolk of egg, salad oil, tarragon and white wine vinegars, mustard, pepper and salt. One yolk of egg will blend with as much as -pt. oil if the oil is stirred in very gradually, drop by drop, to the yolk : the vinegar can be added from time to time as the mixture gets thick and the quantity can be left to the taste of the cook. A good mayonnaise should not taste too acid or too oily. Additions of chopped capers or gherkins to this make Tartare sauce.
2. Chaudfroid Sauces, for coating meat, poultry, fish. These may be brown, fawn, white, red, green, the foundations being a good brown or white sauce, tomato sauce, cucumber sauce. To these sauces are added aspic jelly, gelatine and a little cream.
Miscellaneous Sauces.—(a) those made from purées, some of which are thickened with cornflour, i.e. tomato, cucumber, spin ach, apple, celery, (b) custard sauces made from eggs and milk and flavoured with vanilla, lemon or wine, i.e., sherry sauce, (c) those made from syrups, i.e., jam, lemon, marmalade, (d) mint, horseradish. (E. G. C.)