The foundation for a large proportion of sauces is in what the French cook knows as a _roux_, and we as "drawn butter." As our drawn butter is often lumpy, or with the taste of the raw flour, I give the French method as a security against such disaster.
Melt in a saucepan a piece of butter the size of an egg, and add two even tablespoonfuls of sifted flour; one ounce of butter to two of flour being a safe rule. Stir till smooth, and pour in slowly one pint of milk, or milk and water, or water alone. With milk it is called _cream roux_, and is used for boiled fish and poultry. Where the butter and flour are allowed to brown, it is called a _brown roux_, and is thinned with the soup or stew which it is designed to thicken. Capers added to a _white roux_--which is the butter and flour, with water added--give _caper sauce_, for use with boiled mutton. Pickled nasturtiums are a good substitute for capers. Two hard-boiled eggs cut fine give egg sauce. Chopped parsley or pickle, and the variety of catchups and sauces, make an endless variety; the _white roux_ being the basis for all of them.
For this sauce boil one point of milk, with one onion cut in pieces. When it has boiled five minutes, take out the onion, and thicken the milk with half a pint of sifted bread-crumbs. Melt a teaspoonful of butter in a frying-pan; put in half a pint of coarser crumbs, stirring them till a light brown. Flavor the sauce with half a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, and a grate of nutmeg; and serve with game, helping a spoonful of the sauce, and one of the browned crumbs. The boiled onion may be minced fine and added, and the browned crumbs omitted.
Wash and boil a small head of celery, which has been cut up fine, in one pint of water, with half a teaspoonful of salt. Boil till tender, which will require about half an hour. Make a _cream roux_, using half a pint of milk, and adding quarter of a saltspoonful of white pepper. Stir into the celery; boil a moment, and serve. A teaspoonful of celery salt can be used, if celery is out of season, adding it to the full rule for _cream roux_. Cauliflower may be used in the same way as celery, cutting it very fine, and adding a large cupful to the sauce. Use either with boiled meats.