Take part of a round of fresh beef (or if you prefer it a piece of the flank or brisket) and rub it with salt. Place skewers in the bottom of the stew-pot, and lay the meat upon them with barely water enough to cover it. To enrich the gravy you may add the necks and other trimmings of whatever poultry you may happen to have; also the root of a tongue, if convenient. Cover the pot, and set it over a quick fire. When it boils and the scum has risen, skim it well, and then diminish the fire so that the meat shall only simmer; or you may set the pot on hot coals. Then put in four or five carrots sliced thin, a head of celery cut up, and four or fire sliced turnips. Add a bunch of sweet herbs, and a small table-spoonful of black pepper-corns tied in a thin muslin rag. Let it stew slowly for four or fire hours, and then add a dozen very small onions roasted and peeled, and a large table-spoonful of capers or nasturtians. You may, if you choose, stick a clove in each onion. Simmer it half an hour longer, then take up the meat, and place-it in a dish, laying the vegetables round it. Skim and strain the gravy; season it with catchup, and made mustard, and serve it up in a boat. Mutton may be cooked in this manner.
Having well buttered the inside of a nicely tinned stew-pot, cut half a pound of ham into slices, and lay them at the bottom, with three pounds of the lean of fresh beef, and as much veal, cut from the bones, which you must afterward break to pieces, and lay on the meat. Cover the pan closely, and set it over a quick fire. When the meat begins to stick to the pan, turn it; and when there is a nice brown glaze at the bottom, cover the meat with cold water. Watch it well, and when it is just coming to a boil, put in half a pint of cold water. This will cause the scum to rise. Skim it well, and then pour in another half pint of cold water; skim it again; pour in cold water as before, half a pint at a time, and repeat this till no more scum rises. In skimming, carefully avoid stirring the soup, as that will injure its clearness. In the mean time prepare your vegetables. Peel off the outer skin of three large white onions and slice them. Pare three large turnips, and slice them also. Wash clean and cut into small pieces three carrots, and three large heads of celery. If you cannot obtain fresh celery, substitute a large table-spoonful of celery seed, tied up in a bit of clear muslin. Put the vegetables into the soup, and then place the pot on one side of the fire, where the heat is not so great as in the middle. Let it boil gently for four hours. Then strain the soup through a fine towel or linen bag into a large stone pan, but do not squeeze the bag, or the soup will be cloudy, and look dull instead of clear. In pouring it into the straining cloth, be careful not to disturb the ingredients at the bottom of the soup-pot. This soup should be of a fine clear amber colour. If not perfectly bright after straining, you may clarify it in this manner. Put it into the stew-pan. Break the whites of two eggs into a basin, carefully avoiding the smallest particle of the yolk. Beat the white of egg to a stiff froth, and then mix it gradually with the soup. Set it over the fire, and stir it till it boils briskly. Then take it off, and set it beside the fire to settle for ten minutes. Strain it then through a clean napkin, and it will be fit for use. But it is better to have the soup clear by making it carefully, than to depend on clarifying it afterward, as the white of egg weakens the taste. In making this (which is quite a show-soup) it is customary to reverse the general rule, and pour in cold water.
Take two or three French-Rowles, or white penny bread, cut them in slices, and put to the bread as much Cream as wil cover it, put it on the fire till your Cream and bread be very warm, then take a ladle or spoon and beat it very well together, put to this twelve Eggs, but not above foure whites, put in Beef Suet, or Marrow, according to your discretion, put a pretty quantity of Currans and Raisins, season the Pudding with Nutmeg, Mace, Salt, and Sugar, but very little flower for it will make it sad and heavy; make a piece of puff past as much as will cover your dish, so cut it very handsomely what fashion you please; Butter the bottome of your Dish, put the pudding into the Dish, set it in a quick Oven, not too hot as to burne it, let it bake till you think it be enough, scrape on Sugar and serve it up.
Take your beef steaks and beat them with the back of a knife, fry them in butter over a quick fire, that they may be brown before they be too much done; when they are enough put them into an earthen pot whilst you have fry'd them all; pour out the fat, and put them into your pan with a little gravy, an onion shred very small, a spoonful of catchup and a little salt; thicken it with a little butter and flour, the thickness of cream. Garnish your dish with pickles. Beef-steaks are proper for a side-dish.
For shortening; use drippings and mix with goose, duck or chicken fat. In the fall and winter, when poultry is plentiful and fat, save all drippings of poultry fat for pie-crust. If you have neither, use rendered beef fat. Take one-half cup of shortening, one and one-half cups of flour. Sifted pastry flour is best. If you have none at hand take two tablespoons of flour off each cup after sifting; add a pinch of salt. With two knives cut the fat into the sifted flour until the shortening is in pieces as small as peas. Then pour in six or eight tablespoons of cold water; in summer use ice-water; work with the knife until well mixed (never use the hand). Flour a board or marble slab, roll the dough out thin, sprinkle with a little flour and put dabs of soft drippings here and there, fold the dough over and roll out thin again and spread with fat and sprinkle with flour, repeat this and then roll out not too thin and line a pie-plate with this dough. Always cut dough for lower crust a little larger than the upper dough and do not stretch the dough when lining pie-pan or plate. If fruit is to be used for the filling, brush over top of the dough with white of egg slightly beaten, or sprinkle with one tablespoon of bread crumbs to prevent the dough from becoming soggy. Put in the filling, brush over the edge of pastry with cold water, lay the second round of paste loosely over the filling; press the edges together lightly, and trim, if needed. Cut several slits in the top crust or prick it with a fork before putting it in place. Bake from thirty-five to forty-five minutes until crust is a nice brown. A gas stove is more satisfactory for baking pies than a coal stove as pies require the greatest heat at the bottom. The recipe given above makes two crusts. Bake pies having a cooked filling in a quick oven and those with an uncooked filling in a moderate oven. Let pies cool upon plates on which they were made because slipping them onto cold plates develops moisture which always destroys the crispness of the lower crust.
Make a good paste in the proportion of a pound of butter to two pounds of sifted flour. Divide it in half, and line with one sheet of it the bottom and sides of a deep dish, which must first be well buttered. Have ready two pounds of the best beef-steak, cut thin, and well beaten; the bone and fat being omitted. Season it with pepper and salt. Spread a layer of the steak at the bottom of the pie, and on it a layer of sliced potato, and a few small bits of butter rolled in flour. Then another layer of meat, potato, &c., till the dish is full. You may greatly improve the flavour by adding mushrooms, or chopped clams or oysters, leaving out the hard parts. If you use clams or oysters, moisten the other ingredients with a little of their liquor. If not, pour in, at the last, half a pint of cold water, or less if the pie is small. Cover the pie with the other sheet of paste as a lid, and notch the edges handsomely, having reserved a little of the paste to make a flower or tulip to stick in the slit at the top. Bake it in a quick oven an hour and a quarter, or longer, in proportion to its size. Send it to table hot. You may make a similar pie of mutton chops, or veal cutlets, or venison steaks, always leaving out the bone and fat. Many persons in making pies stew the meat slowly in a little water till about half done, and they then put it with its gravy into the paste and finish by baking. In this case add no water to the pie, as there will be already sufficient liquid If you half-stew the meat, do the potatoes with it.
Pass the meat twice through a sausage machine, put it into a saucepan, pour over the cold water, and stand on the stove; stir constantly until it comes to boiling point, but do not allow it to boil. As soon as it changes colour from red to brown strain through a colander, add salt to taste, and it is ready to serve.
To two pounds of chopped beef take three egg yolks, three tablespoons of parsley, three tablespoons of melted chicken-fat, four heaping tablespoons of soft bread crumbs, one-half teaspoon of kitchen bouquet, two teaspoons of lemon juice, grated peel of one lemon, one teaspoon of salt, one-half teaspoon of onion-juice and one teaspoon of pepper. Mix and bake twenty-five minutes in a quick oven with one-fourth cup of melted chicken-fat, and one-half cup of boiling water. Baste often.
The best cutlets are those taken from the leg or fillet. Cut them about half an inch thick, and as large as the palm of your hand. Season them with pepper and salt. Grate some stale bread, and rub it through a cullender, adding to it chopped sweet marjoram, grated lemon-peel, and some powdered mace or nutmeg. Spread the mixture on a large flat dish. Have ready in a pan some beaten egg. First dip each cutlet into the egg, and then into the seasoning on the dish, seeing that a sufficient quantity adheres to both sides of the meat. Melt in your frying-pan, over a quick fire, some beef-dripping, lard, or fresh butter, and when it boils lay your cutlets in it, and fry them thoroughly; turning them on both sides, and taking care that they do not burn. Place them in a covered dish near the fire, while you finish the gravy in the pan, by first skimming it, and then shaking in a little flour and stirring it round. Pour the gravy hot round the cutlets, and garnish with little bunches of curled parsley. You may mix with the bread crumbs a little saffron.
Cut any left-over beef, lamb or veal in small pieces, removing all excess of fat; parboil one green pepper (seeds removed) cut in strips, two cups of potatoes and one-half cup of carrots cut in dice, and one onion chopped fine. Add to the meat. Thicken with one-fourth cup of flour moistened in cold water. Put in a baking dish. The crust is made as follows: One cup of flour, one heaping teaspoon of drippings, pinch of salt, one-fourth teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of sugar and cold water to mix, about one-third cup. Roll out to fit baking dish, cut holes for steam to escape, after covering the contents of the dish. Bake in a quick hot oven one-half hour.
