Thanks for Dinner: Sauces
For when you feel saucy

Menus: By Decade

Recipes: By Type

Sauces from Cranberry to Celery

Sauces were served in a variety of ways. They could be sides themselves (such as cranberry sauce), as accompaniments to sides, or as an accompaniments to the main cource.

Sauce Recipes

1883: Cranberry Sauce
  • 1 pound of cranberries
  • 3/4 pound of sugar
  • 1 cup of water
To make whole cranberry sauce: Remove soft berries and wash thoroughly. Add together cranberries, sugar, and water in a sauce pan over medium heat. Cover, but do not stir. Bring to a boil, and boil five to seven minutes. Shake the saucepan gently or lower the heat if the berries are in danger of sticking or burning. Remove from the stove, turn out into a deep dish, and then let cool.
To make make a strained cranberry sauce: Remove soft berries and wash thoroughly. Add together cranberries and water together in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, and boil ten to twelve minutes or until the berries are very soft. Strain through a sieve, using a wooden spoon to push it through. Discard anything that does not go through. To the sieved pulp, add the sugar and stir until incorporated. Turn into a dish and let cool before serving.
- Wilcox, Estelle Woods, Franklin Type Foundry, and Buckeye Publishing Company. Buckeye Cookery: With Hints On Practical Housekeeping. Rev. and enl. Minneapolis, Minn.: Buckeye Pub. Co., 1883.

1888: Foamy Sauce
  • 1/2 cup of butter
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 lemon, grated rind and juice
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup boiling water or 1/2 cup hot white wine
To make foamy sauce for a pudding: Beat the butter to a cream in a bowl and gradually beat into it the powdered sugar. Add the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, and nutmeg. Beat the whites of two eggs to stiff peaks, and then beat the yolks into them. Now fold the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture. Place the bowl over a pan of boiling water. Stir for three minutes and gradually add in the boiling water. Take off the stove once the water has been added and keep the bowl warm, but not hot, until it is time to pour over the pudding.
If you prefer the flavor of wine in the sauce, omit the lemon and substitute the hot wine for the boiling water.
- Good Housekeeping Holyoke, Mass.: C.W. Bryan, 1888.

1889: Lobster Sauce
  • 1 small lobster
  • 3 tbsps butter
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 2 tbsps flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, liquid or ground
  • 1 lemon juice
  • 10 drops onion juice
In a pot of water, boil the lobster until done. Remove the coral (eggs) and rub with 1 tbsp of butter until you have a smooth paste. If the lobster does not have coral, take the small claws and the "skin", pound in a mortar and pestle, mix with the butter, and press through a sieve with the back of a spoon. This ceates lobster butter and will give the sauce its color.
Dice the meat from the lobster's tail and claw. Put in a pan with the stock, put over medium-low heat, and simmer gently for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat. In a large saucepan, melt the remaining two tbsps of butter over medium-high hear. Add the flour once it is melted. Mix until smooth, then add in the stock the lobster meat was cooked in. Bring to a boil and add salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, onion juice, lobster meal, and the lobster butter. Bring to a boil, turn off the heat, and serve .
- Table Talk. Philadelphia: Table Talk Publishing Company, vol. 4, 1889.