Choice Cookery

should be acidity enough to provoke appetite; yet even this should be by no means sour. To make _Piquante sauce_, chop a shallot fine, put it, with a tablespoonful of vinegar, into a very small saucepan; let them stew together until the vinegar is _entirely absorbed_, but do not let it burn. Then add to it half a pint of Spanish sauce and a gill of stock, with a bay-leaf and a sprig of thyme; cook very gently ten minutes, remove the thyme and bay-leaf, and add a dessertspoonful of chopped pickled cucumber, a teaspoonful of capers, and a dessertspoonful of _finely_ chopped parsley. Simmer very slowly ten minutes more; then add enough cayenne to lay on the tip of a penknife blade. _Poivrade_ resembles piquante sauce very closely, differing from it, however, by the addition of wine and higher flavoring. To make it, fry an onion and a small carrot cut fine, a tomato sliced, and an ounce of lean ham in two ounces of butter; let them brown slightly; then add to them half a pint of claret, a bouquet of herbs, two cloves, and six peppercorns; let them simmer till the wine is reduced one half; then add half a pint of good Spanish sauce, boil gently ten minutes, strain, and serve very hot. A true French poivrade has a _soupcon_ of garlic, obtained by rubbing a crust on a clove of it, and simmering it in the sauce before straining it; but although many would like the scarcely perceptible zest imparted by this cautious use of garlic, no one should try the experiment unless sure of her company. A "bouquet of herbs" always means two sprigs of parsley, one of thyme, one of marjoram, and a bay-leaf, so rolled together (the bay-leaf in the middle) and tied that there is no difficulty in removing it from any dish which is not to be strained. The well-known _Bordelaise sauce_ is simply Spanish sauce with the addition of white wine and shallots. Scald a tablespoonful of chopped shallots; put them to half a pint of Chablis, Sauterne, or