Skip to content

Dutch Sauce for Fish

A historical recipe from The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861).

A historical recipe

The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Project Gutenberg eBook #10136.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Also printed in: Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree (1878).

Source and licence

From The Book of Household Management, by Beeton, Mrs. (Isabella Mary) (1861). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #10136 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10136). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

Netherlands. Associated with Netherlands by a demonym leading its title: Dutch (confidence 0.55). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

Create an image with FoodStudio Made by our AI generator from your own prepaid SecondMem credits. We keep no picture from the source.

Ingredients

Method

  1. 405.
  2. INGREDIENTS.--1/2 teaspoonful of flour, 2 oz.
  3. of butter, 4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, the yolks of 2 eggs, the juice of 1/2 lemon;
  4. salt to taste.
  5. Mode.--Put all the ingredients, except the lemon-juice, into a stew-pan;
  6. set it over the fire, and keep continually stirring.
  7. When it is sufficiently thick, take it off, as it should not boil.
  8. If, however, it happens to curdle, strain the sauce through a tammy, add the lemon-juice, and serve.
  9. Tarragon vinegar may be used instead of plain, and, by many, is considered far preferable.
  10. Note.--This sauce may be poured hot over salad, and left to get quite cold, when it should be thick, smooth, and somewhat stiff.
  11. Excellent salads may be made of hard eggs, or the remains of salt fish flaked nicely from the bone, by pouring over a little of the above mixture when hot, and allowing it to cool.
  12. THE LEMON.--This fruit is a native of Asia, and is mentioned by Virgil as an antidote to poison.
  13. It is hardier than the orange, and, as one of the citron tribe, was brought into Europe by the Arabians.
  14. The lemon was first cultivated in England in the beginning of the 17th century, and is now often to be found in our green-houses.
  15. The kind commonly sold, however, is imported from Portugal, Spain, and the Azores.
  16. Some also come from St.
  17. Helena;
  18. but those from Spain are esteemed the best.
  19. Its juice is now an essential for culinary purposes;
  20. but as an antiscorbutic its value is still greater.
  21. This juice, which is called citric acid, may be preserved in bottles for a considerable time, by covering it with a thin stratum of oil.
  22. Shrub is made from it with rum and sugar.