Choice Cookery

an hour in water, then shred it into fine even strips half an inch long, and not thicker than broom straw. Stew this shredded peel another half-hour in a gill of stock, with a scant teaspoonful of sugar; then add it to the sauce, with half a saltspoonful of salt, and boil five minutes. _Matelote_ may come in with the brown sauces, although it is not made with Spanish sauce as a foundation, but only with strong stock. It is used to simmer fish in when directed to be _a la matelote_, and if it were already thickened the whole would burn. It is made as follows: Half a pint of Sauterne or Chablis, half a pint of rich stock, two bay-leaves, three leaves of tarragon, chervil, and chive, a scant saltspoonful of salt, a quarter one of pepper; simmer these until reduced to one half-pint. A _touch_ of garlic is indispensable to the true matelote, but when used it must be done with the greatest caution; a fork stuck into a clove of it, then stirred in the sauce (the fork, when withdrawn, not the garlic), or a crust rubbed once across a piece of it, is the only way in which it should be used. Like the white sauces, the family of brown ones is very large, but I have given those which require special directions. Others are simply Spanish sauce with the addition of the ingredient which gives its name to it, as brown oyster sauce is simply Spanish sauce with oysters, celery sauce, mushroom sauce, and so on. It should always be remembered that the consistency must be preserved; that is to say, except when special mention is made of the sauce being thinner, it should "mask the spoon," and if the addition made to it is of a kind to dilute it, as mushrooms and part of their liquor, it must be rapidly boiled down to the original thickness. In the same way, when ingredients have to be simmered in the sauce--and this is very often the case--then a wineglassful or half one of broth