A Simple Brown Sauce.
Put into a saucepan a table-spoonful of minced onion and a little butter. When it has taken color, sprinkle in a heaping tea-spoonful of flour; stir well, and when brown add half a pint of stock. Cook it a few minutes, and strain. Now, by adding a cupful of claret, two cloves, a sprig of parsley, and one of thyme, a bay-leaf, pepper, and salt, and by boiling two or three minutes and straining it, one has the sauce poivrade.
If, instead of the claret, one should add to the poivrade sauce a table-spoonful each of minced cucumber pickles, vinegar, and capers, one has the sauce piquante.
By adding one tea-spoonful of made mustard, the juice of half a lemon, and a little vinegar to the poivrade, instead of the claret, one has the sauce Robert.