Tomato Sauce Piquante

Ingredients: Ham, butter, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, thyme, cloves, peppercorns, vinegar, Chablis, stock, tomatoes, Velute or Espagnole sauce, castor sugar, lemon.

Cut up an ounce of ham, half an onion, half a carrot, half a stick of celery very fine, and fry them in butter together with a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, one clove and four peppercorns. Over this pour a third of a cup of vinegar, and when the liquid is all absorbed, add half a glass of Chablis and a cup of stock. Then add six tomatoes cut up and strained of all their liquid. Cook this in a covered stewpan and pass it through a sieve, but see that none ofthe bay leaf or thyme goes through. Mix this sauce with an equal quantity of Velute or Espagnole sauce, let it boil and pass through a sieve again and at the last add a teaspoonful of castor sugar, the juice of half a lemon, and an ounce of fresh butter. (Another tomato sauce may be made like this, but use stock instead of vinegar and leave out the lemon juice and sugar.)