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Beef, Shin of, Soup

Take three or four pounds of shin of beef, cut the meat into two or three slices down to the bone, which should remain undivided and still enclosed in the flesh. Plug up each end of the bone with a stiff paste made of flour and water, to keep in the marrow. Set it on the fire in a large pot of cold water, with six or eight peppercorns and three or four cloves. Remove the scum as it rises. Season slightly with salt; otherwise, by continued boiling and warming-up, the broth will be so reduced as to become too salt. Let it boil gently for four hours, then make it boil fast, and throw in a few peeled turnips, carrots, and onions, with a small bunch of thyme and parsley. When the vegetables are tender, serve the soup only, with bits of toasted bread floating in it. When the soup has been served, take up the beef, remove the slices of meat from the bone, separate them, if needed, with a knife and fork, put them in the middle of a hot dish, and arrange the vegetables round them, cutting the carrots and turnips into shapely bits. For sauce, fry chopped onions brown, stir in amongst them a dessert-spoonful of flour, previously mixed with a little of the soup, two dessert-spoonfuls of mushroom ketchup, pepper and salt, stir all together, and pour it over the slices of shin, and serve. For the marrow: toast a large round of bread, lay it on a hot plate, spread the marrow roughly on it, season with pepper, salt, and a little mustard, cut it into as many pieces as there are guests, and serve very hot.