It is only in coarse cooking that the flavour of onions, pepper, garlic, nutmeg, and eschalot is permitted to prevail. As a general rule, salt should be used in moderation.
Sugar is an improvement in nearly all soups, sauces, and gravies; also with stewed vegetables, but of course must be used with discretion.
Ketchups, Soy, Harvey's sauce, &c., are used too indiscrimately by inferior cooks; it is better to leave them to be added at table by those who approve of their flavour.
Any thing that is required to be warmed up a second time, should be set in a basin placed in a bain-marie, or saucepan, filled with boiling water, but which must not be allowed to boil; or the article will become hardened and the sauce dried up.
To remove every particle of fat from the gravies of stews, &c., a piece of white blotting-paper should be laid on the surface, and the fat will adhere to it; this should be repeated two or three times.
