Cut up a small onion into thin rings, chop a bead of garlic, and fry in two ounces of butter a pale yellow. Cut up three good-sized tomatoes, and let it all simmer together till quite soft. Pass it all through a fine wire sieve. Add enough water to make half a pint of sauce. Thicken with a little butter rolled in flour. Salt to taste and a few drops of tarragon vinegar.
Cut up a very small onion, chop one bead of garlic, and fry in three ounces of butter, to which add a tablespoon of flour. Fry till brown. Add half a pint of water, stir, and let it thicken. Strain. Add salt and Nepaul pepper to taste, and about six good-sized mushrooms that have been peeled and picked and chopped. Let it simmer for about ten minutes very gently, and just before serving add a tablespoon of mushroom ketchup and a squeeze of lemon.
Cut up an onion into rings; chop up two beads of garlic. Fry in three ounces of butter, with one tablespoon of flour, a nice brown. Add half a pint of water, let it thicken, and then strain it. Add the grated peel of half a lemon, the juice of a whole one, and salt and Nepaul pepper to taste.
Cut up an onion into thin rings, chop two beads of garlic, and fry in three ounces of butter, with a tablespoon of flour, till quite brown. Add half a pint of water, let it thicken, and strain. Then add two tablespoons of finely chopped green parsley, salt and Nepaul pepper to taste.
Cut up an onion into thin rings, chop two beads of garlic, also two bay-leaves; fry these in three ounces of butter with twelve cloves and a tablespoon of flour; let it get quite brown. Add the milk of a cocoa-nut and enough water to make it half a pint; let it thicken, and strain, then add two tablespoons of scraped cocoa-nuts, salt and Nepaul pepper to taste. This is very good with boiled fish.
Cut up an onion into rings, chop one bead of garlic, fry in three ounces of butter with one tablespoon of flour. Add somewhat less than half a pint of water, two tablespoons of vinegar, one of tarragon vinegar, one of chervil vinegar, one teaspoon of Chili vinegar, and salt to taste. Strain, and then add to it a small beet-root passed through a wire sieve.
I have not given recipes for plain boiling and frying; most cooks know how to do this perfectly well, and it would only be repeating what is in other books. I will only add that most of the sauces poured over plain boiled fish seem to change its character entirely; for instance, boiled fillets of skate smothered in onion sauce taste very much like white meat. Some of the brown sauces, too, poured over good firm fleshed fish, seem very much like chicken or rabbit.