Sauce for Boiled Ducks or Rabbits
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the onions
Peel some onions, and boil them in plenty of water.
Change the first water, and boil them two hours.
Take them up and put them in a colander to drain, and afterwards chop them on a board.
Make the sauce
Put them in a sauce-pan, sprinkle a little flour over them, and put in a large piece of butter, with a little milk or cream.
Set them over the fire, and when the butter is melted, they will be done enough.
Serve
Pour boiled onions over your ducks or rabbits, prepared in this manner.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Onions (in the method)
- Long boiling softens them until they can be chopped and blended into a smooth sauce.
- Butter
- Melts to enrich the sauce and give it a rich, silky texture.
- Flour (in the method)
- Thickens the sauce as it heats with the butter and liquid.
- Milk or cream (in the method)
- Adds moisture and richness, loosening the sauce to a pourable consistency.
The step that matters
Setting the sauce over the fire. Once the butter melts, the sauce is ready, so overheating can cause the butter to separate and the flour to clump, leaving the sauce greasy or lumpy.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.