Part 29

Mash some potatoes with hot milk, the yolk of an egg, some butter and salt. Slice the cold beef and lay it at the bottom of a pie-dish, adding to it some sliced shalot, pepper, salt, and a little beef gravy; cover the whole with a thick paste of potatoes, making the crust to rise in the centre above the edges of the dish. Score the potato crust with the point of a knife in squares of equal sizes. Put the dish before a fire in a Dutch oven, and brown it on all sides; by the time it is coloured, the meat and potatoes will be sufficiently done.

[TRY ALL THINGS, HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD.]

1141. Beef Bubble and Squeak.

Cut into pieces convenient for frying, cold roasted or boiled beef; pepper, salt, and fry them; when done, lay them on a hot drainer, and while the meat is draining from the fat used in frying them, have in readiness a cabbage already boiled in two waters; chop it small, and put it in the frying-pan with some butter, add a little pepper and keep stirring it, that all of it may be equally done. When taken from the fire, sprinkle over the cabbage a very little vinegar, only enough to give it a slightly acid taste. Place the cabbage in the centre of the dish, and arrange the slices of meat neatly around it.

1142. Beef or Mutton Lobscous.

Mince, not too finely, some cold roasted beef or mutton. Chop the bones, and put them in a saucepan with six potatoes peeled and sliced, one onion, also sliced, some pepper and salt; of these make a gravy. When the potatoes are completely incorporated with the gravy, take out the bones and put in the meat; stew the whole together for an hour before it is to be served.

1143. Beef Rissoles.

Mince and season cold beef, and flavour it with mushroom or walnut ketchup. Make of beef dripping a very thin paste, roll it out in thin pieces, about four inches square; enclose in each piece some of the mince, in the same way as for puffs, cutting each neatly all round; fry them in dripping to a very light brown. The paste can scarcely be rolled out too thin.

1144. Veal Minced.

Cut veal from the fillet or shoulder into very small dice; put into veal or mutton broth with a little mace, white pepper, salt, some lemon peel grated, and a tablespoonful of mushroom ketchup or mushroom powder, rubbed smooth into the gravy, Take out some of the gravy when nearly done, and when cool enough thicken it with flour, cream, and a little butter; boil it up with the rest of the gravy, and pour it over the meat when done. Garnish with bread sippets. A little lemon juice added to the gravy improves its flavour.

1145. Veal dressed with White Sauce.

Boil milk or cream with a thickening of flour and butter; put into it thin slices of cold veal, and simmer it in the gravy till it is made hot without boiling. When nearly done, beat up the yolk of an egg, with a little anchovy and white sauce; pour it gently to the rest, stirring it all the time; simmer again the whole together, and serve it with sippets of bread and curled bacon alternately.

1146. Veal Rissoles.

Mince and pound veal extremely fine; grate into it some remains of cooked ham. Mix these well together with white sauce, flavoured with mushrooms: form this mixture into balls, and enclose each in pastry. Fry them in butter to a light brown. The same mince may be fried in balls without pastry, being first cemented together with egg and breadcrumbs.

1147. Mutton Hashed.

Cut cold mutton into thin slices, fat and lean together; make gravy with the bones whence the meat has been taken, boiling them long enough in water, with onion, pepper and salt; strain the gravy, and warm, but do not boil, the mutton in it. Then take out some of the gravy to thicken it with flour and butter, and flavour it with mushroom ketchup. Pour in the thickening and boil it up, having previously taken out the meat, and placed it neatly on the dish in which it is to go to the table. Pour over it the boiling gravy, and add sippets of bread.

1148. Lamb.

Fry slices or chops of lamb in butter till they are slightly browned. Serve them on a _purée_ of cucumbers, or on a dish of spinach; or dip the slices in bread-crumbs, chopped parsley, and yolk of an egg; some grated lemon and a little nutmeg may be added. Fry them, and pour a little nice gravy over them when served.

[WE LEARN SOMETHING, EVEN BY OUR FAILURES.]

1149. Pork.

Slices of cold pork, fried and laid on apple sauce, form an excellent side or corner dish. Boiled pork may also he made into rissoles, minced very fine like sausage meat, and seasoned sufficiently, but not over much.

1150. Round of Salt Beef.

Skewer it tight and round, and tie a fillet of broad tape about it. Put it into plenty of cold water, and carefully remove the scum; let it boil till all the scum is removed, and then put the boiler on one side of the fire, to continue simmering slowly till it is done. Half a round may be boiled for a small family. When you take it up, wash the scum off with a paste-brush--garnish with carrots and turnips.

1151. Aitchbone of Beef.

Manage in the same way as the round. The soft, marrow-like fat which lies on the back is best when hot, and the hard fat of the upper corner is best cold.

1152. Stewed Brisket of Beef.

Stew in sufficient water to cover the meat; when tender, take out the bones, and skim off the fat; add to the gravy, when strained, a glass of wine, and a little spice tied up in a muslin bag. (This can he omitted if preferred.) Have ready either mushrooms, truffles, or vegetables boiled, and cut into shapes, Lay them on and around the beef; reduce part of the gravy to glaze, lay it on the top, and pour the remainder into the dish.

1153. Baked Brisket of Beef.

Brisket of beef may lie baked, the bones being removed, and the holes filled with oysters, fat bacon, parsley, or all three in separate holes; these stuffings being chopped and seasoned to taste. Dredge it well with flour, pour upon it half a pint of broth, bake for three hours, skim off the fat, strain the gravy over the meat, and garnish with cut pickles.

1154. Pork, Spare-rib.

Joint it nicely before roasting, and crack the ribs across as lamb. Take care not to have the fire too fierce. The joint should be basted with very little butter and flour, and may be sprinkled with fine dried sage, It takes from two to three hours. Apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and greens are the proper accompaniments, also good mustard, fresh made.

1155. Lamb Stove or Lamb Stew.

Take a lamb's head and lights, open the jaws of the head, and wash them thoroughly; put them in a pot with some beef stock, made with three quarts of water and two pounds of shin of beef, strained; boil very slowly for an hour; wash and string two or three good handfuls of spinach; put it in twenty minutes before serving; add a little parsley, and one or two onions, a short time before it comes off the fire; season with pepper and salt, and serve all together in a tureen.

1156. Roast Beef Bones

Roast beef bones furnish a very relishing luncheon or supper, prepared with poached or fried eggs and mashed potatoes as accompaniments. Divide the bones, having good pickings of meat on each; score them in squares, pour a little melted butter over, and sprinkle with pepper and salt; put them on a dish; set in a Dutch oven for half or three quarters of an hour, according to the thickness of the meat; keep turning till they are quite hot and brown: or broil them on the gridiron. Brown but do not burn them. Serve with piquant sauce.

1157. Marrow Bones.

Saw the bones evenly, so that they will stand steadily; put a piece of paste into the ends; set them upright in a saucepan, and boil till they are done enough--beef marrow bone will require from an hour and a half to two hours; serve fresh-toasted bread with them.

1158. Beef (Rump) Steak and Onion Sauce.

Peel and slice two large onions, put them into a quart stewpan, with two tablespoonfuls of water; cover the pan close, and set on a slow fire till the water has boiled away, and the onions have become a little browned; then add half a pint of good broth, and boil the onions till they are tender; strain the broth, and chop very fine; season with mushroom ketchup, pepper, and salt; put in the onions then, and let them boil gently for five minutes, pour into the dish, and lay over it a broiled rump steak. If instead of broth you use good beef gravy, it will be delicious.

[WHEN WE THINK WE FAIL, WE ARE OFTEN NEAR SUCCESS.]

1159. Beef à la Mode and Veal Ditto.

Take about eleven pounds of the mouse buttock,--or clod of beef,--or blade bone,--or the sticking-piece, or the like weight of the breast of veal;--cut it into pieces of three or four ounces each; put in three or four ounces of beef dripping, and mince a couple of large onions, and lay them into a large deep stewpan. As soon as it is quite hot, flour the meat, put it into the stewpan, continue stirring with a wooden spoon; when it has been on about ten minutes, dredge with flour, and keep doing so till you have stirred in as much as you think will thicken it; then add by degrees about a gallon of boiling water; keep stirring it together; skim it when it boils, and then put in one drachm of ground black pepper, two of allspice, and two bay-leaves; set the pan by the side of the fire, or at a distance over it, and let it stew _very slowly_ for about three hours; when you find the meat sufficiently tender, put it into a tureen, and it is ready for table.

1160. Ox-Cheek Stewed.

Prepare the day before it is to be eaten; clean the cheek and put it into soft water, just warm; let it lie for three or four hours, then put it into cold water, to soak all night; next day wipe it clean, put it into a stewpan, and just cover it with water; skim it well when it is coming to a boil, then add two whole onions with two or three cloves stuck into each, three turnips quartered, a couple of carrots sliced, two bay-leaves, and twenty-four corns of allspice, a head of celery, and a bundle of sweet herbs, pepper, and salt; lastly, add a little cayenne and garlic, if liked.

Let it stew gently till perfectly tender, about three hours; then take out the cheek, divide into pieces fit to help at table; skim and strain the gravy; melt an ounce and a half of butter in a stewpan; stir into it as much flour as it will take up; mix with it by degrees a pint and a half of the gravy; add a tablespoonful of mushroom or walnut ketchup, or port wine, and boil a short time. Serve up in a soup or ragoût dish, or make it into barley broth. This is a very economical, nourishing, and savoury meal.

1161. Hashed Mutton or Beef.

Slice the meat small, trim off the brown edges, and stew down the trimmings with the bones, well broken, an onion, a bunch of thyme and parsley, a carrot cut into slices, a few peppercorns, cloves, salt, and a pint and a half of water or stock. When this is reduced to little more than three quarters of a pint, strain it, clear it from the fat, thicken it with a large dessertspoonful of flour or arrowroot, add salt and pepper, boil the whole for a few minutes, then lay in the meat and heat it well. Boiled potatoes are sometimes sliced hot into the hash.

1162. Irish Stew.

Take two pounds of potatoes; peel and slice them; cut rather more than two pounds of mutton chops, either from the loin or neck; part of the fat should he taken off; beef, two pounds, six large onions sliced, a slice of ham, or lean bacon, a spoonful of pepper, and two of salt. This stew may be done in a stewpan over the fire, or in a baker's oven, or in a close-covered earthen pot. First put a layer of potatoes, then a layer of meat and onions, sprinkle the seasoning, then a layer of potatoes, and again the meat and onions and seasoning; the top layer should be potatoes, and the vessel should be quite full. Then put in half a pint of good gravy, and a spoonful of mushroom ketchup. Let the whole stew for an hour and a half; be very careful it does not burn.

[SECOND TRIALS OFTEN SUCCEED.]

1163. Palatable Stew.

Cut pieces of salt beef and pork into dice, put them into a stewpan with six whole peppercorns, two blades of mace, a few cloves, a teaspoonful of celery-seeds, and a faggot of dried sweet herbs; cover with water, and stew gently for an hour, then add fragments of carrots, turnips, parsley, or any other vegetables at hand, with two sliced onions, and some vinegar to flavour; thicken with flour or rice, remove the herbs, and pour into the dish with toasted bread, or freshly baked biscuit, broken small, and serve hot. When they can be procured, a few potatoes improve it very much.

1164. Ragoût of Cold Veal.

Either a neck, loin, or fillet of veal will furnish this excellent ragoût with a very little expense or trouble. Cut the veal into handsome cutlets; put a piece of butter, or clean dripping, into a frying pan; as soon as it is hot, flour and fry the veal to a light brown; take it out, and if you have no gravy ready, put a pint of boiling water into the frying-pan, give it a boil-up for a minute, and strain it in a basin while you make some thickening in the following manner:

Put an ounce of butter into a stewpan; as soon as it melts, mix as much flour as will dry it up; stir it over the fire for a few minutes, and gradually add the gravy you made in the frying-pan: let them simmer together for ten minutes; season with pepper, salt, a little mace, and a wineglassful of mushroom ketchup or wine; strain it through a tammy, or fine sieve, over the meat, and stew very gently till the meat is thoroughly warmed, If you have any ready-boiled bacon, cut it in slices, and put it to warm with the meat.

1165. Economical Dish.

Cut some rather fat ham or bacon into slices, and fry to a nice brown; lay them aside to keep warm; then mix equal quantities of potatoes and cabbage, bruised well together, and fry them in the fat left from the ham. Place the mixture at the bottom, and lay the slices of bacon on the top. Cauliflower, or broccoli, substituted for cabbage, is truly delicious; and, to any one possessing a garden, quite easily procured, as those newly blown will do. The dish must be well seasoned with pepper.

1166. Mock Goose

(being a leg of pork skinned, roasted, and stuffed goose fashion).--Parboil the leg; take off the skin, and then put it down to roast; baste it with butter, and make a _savoury powder_ of finely minced or dried or powdered sage, ground black pepper, salt, and some bread-crumbs, rubbed together through a cullender: add to this a little very finely minced onion; sprinkle it with this when it is almost roasted; put half a pint of made gravy into the dish, and goose stuffing under the knuckle skin; or garnish the dish with balls of it fried or boiled.

1167. Roast Goose.

When a goose is well picked, singed, and cleaned, make the stuffing, with about two ounces of onion--if you think the flavour of raw onions too strong, cut them in slices, and lay them in cold water for a couple of hours, add as much apple or potato as you have of onion, and half as much green sage, chop them very fine, adding four ounces, _i.e._, about a large breakfast cupful, of stale breadcrumbs, a bit of butter about as big as a walnut, and a very little pepper and salt, the yolk of an egg or two, and incorporating the whole well together, stuff the goose; do not quite fill it, but leave a little room for the stuffing to swell. Spit it, tie it on the spit at both ends, to prevent it swinging round, and to prevent the stuffing from coming out. From an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters will roast a fine full-grown goose. Send up gravy and apple sauce with it.

[SECOND THOUGHTS ARE OFTEN BEST.]

1168. Jugged Hare.

Wash it very nicely, cut it up in pieces proper to help at table, and put them into a jugging-pot, or into a stone jar, just sufficiently large to hold it well; put in some sweet herbs, a roll or two of rind of a lemon, and a fine large onion with five cloves stuck in it; and, if you wish to preserve the flavour of the hare, a quarter of a pint of water; but, if you wish to make a ragoût, a quarter of a pint of claret or port wine, and the juice of a lemon. Tie the jar down closely with a bladder, so that no steam can escape; put a little hay in the bottom of the saucepan, in which place the jar; let the water boil for about three hours, according to the age and size of the hare, keeping it boiling all the time, and till up the pot as it boils away.

Care, however, must be taken that it is not overdone, which is the general fault in all made dishes. When quite tender, strain off the gravy from the fat, thicken it with flour, and give it a boil up; lay the pieces of hare in a hash dish, and pour the gravy over it. You may make a pudding the same as for roast hare, and boil it in a cloth, and when you dish up your hare, cut it in slices, or make forcemeat balls of it for garnish. For sauce, red currant jelly.

1169. Stewed Hare.

A much easier and quicker way is the following:--Prepare the hare as for jugging; put it into a stewpan with a few sweet herbs, half a dozen cloves, the same of allspice and black pepper, two large onions, and a roll of lemon peel; cover it with water: when it boils, skim it clean, and let it simmer gently till tender (about two hours); then take the meat up with a slice, set it by a fire to keep hot while you thicken the gravy; take three ounces of butter and some flour, rub together, put in the gravy, stir it well, and let it boil about ten minutes; strain it through a sieve over the meat, and it is ready.

1170. Curried Beef, Madras Way.

Take about two ounces of butter, and place it in a saucepan, with two small onions cut up into slices, and let them fry until they are a light brown; then add a tablespoonful and a half of curry powder, and mix it up well. Now put in the beef, cut into pieces about an inch square; pour in from a quarter to a third of a pint of milk, and let it simmer for thirty minutes; then take it off, and place it in a dish, with a little lemon juice. Whilst cooking stir constantly, to prevent it burning. Send to table with a wall of mashed potatoes or boiled rice round it. It greatly improves any curry to add with the milk a quarter of a cocoa-nut, scraped very small, and squeezed through muslin with a little water; this softens the taste of the curry, and, indeed, no curry should be made without it.

1171. Ragoût of Duck, or any kind of Poultry or Game.

## Partly roast, then divide into joints, or pieces of a suitable size

for helping at table. Set it on in a stewpan, with a pint and a half of broth, or, if you have no broth, water, with any little trimmings of meat to enrich it; a large onion stuck with cloves, a dozen berries of allspice, the same quantity of black pepper, and the rind of half a lemon shaved thin. When it boils, skim it very clean, and then let it simmer gently, with the lid close, for an hour and a half. Then strain off the liquor, and take out the pieces, which keep hot in a basin or deep dish.

Rinse the stewpan, or use a clean one, in which put two ounces of butter, and as much flour or other thickening as will bring it to a stiff paste; add to it the gravy by degrees. Let it boil up, then add a glass of port wine, a little lemon juice, and a teaspoonful of salt; simmer a few minutes. Put the meat in a deep dish, strain the gravy over, and garnish with sippets of toasted bread. The flavour may be varied at pleasure by adding ketchup, curry powder, or vinegar.

1172. To Dress Cold Turkey, Goose, Fowl, Duck, Pigeon, or Rabbit.

Cut the cold bird or rabbit in quarters, beat up an egg or two (according to the quantity to be dressed) with a little grated nutmeg, and pepper and salt, some parsley minced fine, and a few crumbs of bread; mix these well together, and cover the pieces with this batter: broil them, or put them in a Dutch oven, or have ready some dripping hot in a pan, in which fry them a light brown colour; thicken a little gravy with some flour, put a large spoonful of ketchup to it, lay the fry in a dish, and pour the sauce round it; garnish with slices of lemon and toasted bread.

[READ FREQUENTLY THE MEDICAL HINTS.]

1173. Pulled Turkey, Fowl, or Chicken.

Skin a cold chicken, fowl, or turkey; take off the fillets from the breasts, and put them into a stewpan with the rest of the white meat and wings, side-bones, and merry-thought, with a pint of broth, a large blade of mace pounded, a shalot minced fine, the juice of half a lemon, and a strip of the peel, some salt, and a few grains of cayenne; thicken it with flour and butter, and let it simmer for two or three minutes, till the meat is warm. In the meantime score the legs and rump, powder them with pepper and salt, broil them in a dish and lay the pulled chicken round them. Three tablespoonfuls of good cream, or the yolks of as many eggs, will be a great improvement to it.

1174. Hashed Poultry, Game, or Rabbit.