Of course, in everyday life it is not necessary to have the butter sauce so rich, still it is simply ridiculous to thicken a pint of milk, or a pint of water, with a little butter and flour, and then call it butter sauce or melted butter.  Suppose we have a large white cabbage, like those met with in the West of England, and we are going to make a meal off it in conjunction with plenty of bread.  Suppose the cabbage is sufficiently large for six persons, surely half a pound of butter is not an excessive quantity to use in making butter sauce for the purpose.  Yet prejudice is such that if we use half a pound of butter for the butter sauce, housekeepers consider it extravagant.  On the other hand, if the butter were placed on the table, and the six persons helped themselves, and ate bread and butter with the cabbage and finished the half-pound, it would not be considered extravagant.  Of course, this is simply prejudice.

A simple way of making melted butter is as follows:—­Take half a pint of cold water, put it in a saucepan, and add sufficient white roux, or butter and flour mixed, till it is of the consistency of thin gruel.  Now gradually dissolve in this, adding a little piece at a time, as much butter as you can afford; add a suspicion of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt, and a few drops of lemon-juice from a fresh lemon, if you have one in use.

BUTTER, MELTED, OR OILED BUTTER.—­Melted butter, properly speaking, is rarely met with in this country, but is a common everyday sauce on the Continent.  It is simply what it says.  A piece of butter is placed in a little sauce-boat and placed in the oven till the butter runs to oil, and then sent to table with all kinds of fish with which in our present work we have nothing to do; but it is also sent to table with all kinds of vegetables, such as French artichokes, &c.; sometimes a spoonful of French capers is added to the oiled butter.

BUTTER, BLACK, OR BEURRE NOIR.—­Take two ounces of butter, and dissolve it in a frying-pan, and let it frizzle till the butter turns a brown colour; then add a tablespoonful of French vinegar, a teaspoonful of chopped capers, a teaspoonful of Harvey’s sauce, and a teaspoonful of mushroom ketchup.  Let it remain on the fire till the acidity of the vinegar is removed by evaporation.  This is a very delicious sauce, and can be served with Jerusalem artichokes boiled whole, fried eggs, &c.

CAPER SAUCE.—­Make some butter sauce, and to every half-pint of sauce add a dessertspoonful of chopped French capers.  If the sauce is liked sharp, add some of the vinegar from the bottle of capers.

CARROT SAUCE.—­Proceed exactly as in carrot soup, using less liquid.

CAULIFLOWER SAUCE.—­Proceed exactly as in cauliflower soup, using less liquid.

CELERY SAUCE.—­Proceed exactly as in celery soup, only using less liquid.  The thicker this sauce is the better.

CHERRY SAUCE.—­Take a quarter of a pound of dried cherries, and put them into a small stew-pan, with a dessertspoonful of black currant jelly, a small stick of cinnamon, with half a dozen cloves, and add rather less than half a pint of water, and let the whole simmer gently for about ten minutes, when you must take out the spices and send the rest to table.