Coloring for Sauces
For Pink Sauce. Take a few chips of red alkanet root, (to be had at the druggist’s.) Pick it clean, and tie it in a very thin muslin bag. Put the alkanet into the mixture, and let it infuse in the boiling drawn butter. It will communicate a beautiful pink color, which you may heighten, by pressing the bag a little. When done, take out the bag, and stir the alkanet color evenly through the sauce. The alkanet has no taste, and is very cheap. Beet juice will color a tolerable red.
For Green Sauce.—Pound some fresh spinach leaves, till you extract a tea-cup or more of the clear green juice. Stir it into the melted butter while boiling.
For Yellow Sauce.—Tie up a very little turmeric powder in a muslin bag. Let it boil in the butter. When done, take it out of the sauce-pan, and stir the yellow coloring evenly through the sauce.
For White Sauce.—Make this with cream instead of milk.
For Brown Sauce.—Stir in plenty of French mustard.
For Wine Sauce.—Stir in, just before you take the sauce from the fire, a large wine-glass or more of very good white wine, and grate in half a large nutmeg, adding the grated yellow rind, and the juice of a lemon. The wine must be of excellent quality, otherwise it will give a bad taste to the sauce.