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Beef Steak Stew with Jelly

Take rump or round steak and pound it well, to make it soft, and lard it thoroughly. Put it in a stew-pan, in equal parts of whitewine and water, and add some slices from a leg of veal. Season it with spice, salt, garlic, thyme and parsley. Simmer all over a steady fire four or five hours. When sufficiently done, remove the meat, and strain the broth through a sieve; then pour it into another pan, and boil it down until it becomes a jelly. If it is wished that the jelly should be clear, the whites of two eggs may be beaten up in a tablespoonful of stock broth and added to it, and well mixed. It must then be boiled for seven or eight minutes. Some lemon is then to be added, and the contents of the stew-pan strained through a fine cotton strainer, taking care not to squeeze the cloth, or the dregs may be forced through the pores of the material. The filtered jelly is then put in a cold place to set. When it has become perfectly solid it is to be cut into nice pieces, which should be tastefully arranged on the dish, around the piece of meat. Sometimes the jelly is colored before being strained by the addition of a little cochineal powder.

Hotch-Potoh. The ingredients are: Neck or scrag of mutton, made into cutlets, cauliflower, carrots, green peas, onions, stock and turnips. This is something like the New England boiled dinner already described. VII. How to Make Stock.

STOCK is the foundation of all meat-soups, sauces and purees. It is prepared as follows: To make three quarts of good beef stock, put into a saucepan or stock-pot one and a half pounds fresh shin of beef, half-pound of bones broken into pieces, with seven pints of clean, soft water. Let the contents come slowly to the boil, then remove all the scum by skimming. The addition of a little cold water at intervals will facilitate the rising of the scum by altering the specific gravity of the water; if the scum be not removed it will partially redissolve and spoil the clearness and flavor of the stock, and you will have the trouble of clarifying. After skimming well, add the following: one ounce of salt; one onion, with two or, at most, three cloves stuck in it; two leeks, say five ounces; half head of celery weighing half-ounce; turnip cut into quarters, weighing five ounces; carrot sliced, weighing five ounces; parsnip sliced, weighing one ounce; one teaspoonful of white pepper. The contents must now simmer at 180 to 200 degrees for four or five hours; then remove the fat by skimming, it can be used when cold for frying and other purposes.

Take out the meat, vegetables and bones, and strain the stock into a glazed earthenware vessel and keep it in a cool place free from dust; a piece of muslin gauze may be placed over it. Any remaining fat can be removed in a solid state when the liquor is cold. Stock, soup, broth, or stew should always be kept in earthenware vessels. The vegetables should not remain longer in the stock than is necessary to properly cook them, as they afterwards absorb the flavor. In spring and summer, when vegetables are young, they cook in less time, but a stock may be and often is prepared without vegetables.

A stock may also be prepared from previously cooked meat and bones, but the stock will not be so good or rich in flavor as when prepared from fresh meat and bones. The idea which must be ever present in preparing a stock or soup is absolute freedom from fat. Spare no pains in skimming, and a little kitchen-paper or blotting-paper laid on the surface will remove specks of fat which evade the spoon. VIII. To Clarify Stock or Soup.

SOMETIMES stock will not clarify itself. To clarify stock or a soup, take the white and clean shell of an egg for every quart of soup; crush the shell in a mortar, and mix the shell and white of egg with a gill of cold water. Whisk the mixture well, and then add about as much of the boiling soup, still beating up all together. Pour the mixture to the remainder of the stock in the saucepan, still stirring briskly till the whole comes to the boiling point. Remove from the fire, and let the stock remain ten minutes, or until the white of the egg or albumen separates; then strain carefully, and the broth is clarified. The albumen and egg-shells entangle the small solid particles floating in the soup. If care be taken in the preparation of a stock or soup it will not often require clarifying.

IX. To Color Soups.

IT is sometimes desirable that stock should be of a bright golden color, although it is no better on that account. The point to remember in coloring, is not to alter the flavor of the stock or soup; burnt onions or carrots should never be used; they impart a disagreeable taste. The only proper coloring substance is caramel or burnt sugar, which may be prepared as follows:

Take a clean stew-pan or saucepan and put in half pound of pounded loaf sugar, and constantly stir it over the fire with a wooden spoon. When the sugar is thoroughly melted, let it come to the boiling point, and then boil slowly for fifteen minutes, with occasional stirring. When the sugar is of a dark-brown color add one quart of cold water, then boil for twenty minutes on the side of the fire. Let it cool; then strain it, and keep it in clean well-stoppered bottles, and it is ready for use. Caramel should be of a dark-brown color; if it boil too quickly it will become black, and will spoil the color and flavor of the broth. When you use caramel, put it into the soup tureen just before serving.

X. Roasted and Baked Meats.

In the United States, very little meat is roasted before the fire. This method is undoubtedly better than baking, but few families have facilities for roasting. The cook stove is now supreme, and no person will object either to a joint or a bird nicely roasted in an oven. But roasting before the open fire undoubtedly exalts the flavor of meat more than any other way of cooking. Only the best pieces can be used for roasting. The neck, tops of the ribs, shanks and tail make soup, all the odds and ends come in well for stewing, while the best roasting pieces are the ribs, the fillet, the sirloin and rump.