Bread Sauce

There's never enough bread sauce, and I think Delia's recipe is one of the best. It reheats well and I think it suits cold meats of all sorts. I've modified it a bit, though, both to make better use of the onions and to ensure you have enough for the turkey (or goose or whatever) on the day, and for a couple of days afterwards.

Ingredients
2 large onions
lots of cloves - try 8–10 per onion half
2 bay leaves
black peppercorns
2 pints of full cream milk (although semi-skimmed will work)
4 oz butter
8 oz of breadcrumbs (some bread whizzed up in your food-processor is ideal)
4 tablespoons of double cream

Preparation
Start this the day before you need the sauce. Put the milk in a pan and add the bay leaves and peppercorns. Cut the onions in half and stud the round surface with cloves and put them in the milk. The onion will float flat side up so the cloves need to be on the underside. Warm the milk until it's about to boil and then remove from the heat, cover and leave it overnight.

The following day, remove the onions and bay leaves and keep them handy—chasing around after the peppercorns is a bit fiddly so I leave them in. Add the breadcrumbs to the infused milk and stir over a low heat for fifteen minutes or so.

Pick the cloves out of the onions and throw the cloves away. Carefully chop the onions; they'll be soggy with milk and very slippery and fry them gently in half the butter until they're as cooked as you like them, adding a twist or two of black pepper. Add them to the milk and breadcrumbs.

Beat in the remainder of the butter and the cream and season if necessary.

Pete Wright
Portsmouth