Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/164

136 you may remove the fat, before you put in the thickening. The flour for this should be of the finest kind, well dried. For Ragouts, you may brown it, before the fire, or in the oven, and keep it ready prepared. It is convenient to keep spices ready pounded; the quantity so prepared, as to be proportioned to the usual consumption. Kitchen pepper is: 1 oz. ginger, ½ oz. each, of nutmeg, black and Jamaica pepper, and cinnamon; pound or grind, and keep them in small phials, corked, and labelled. For white sauces, white pepper, nutmeg, mace, and grated lemon peel, in equal proportion, may also be kept prepared; cayenne, added or not, as taste requires; cayenne is used in preparations of brains, kidneys, or liver. Made dishes are sometimes served on a Purée of mushrooms or vegetables. This is: boiled to a mash, just thicker than a sauce, and much used in French cookery. To Marinade is to steep meat or fish, in a mixture of wine, vinegar, herbs and spices.

Onions, small silver ones, are blanched, peeled and boiled in good broth to serve as garnish to bouilli and many other made dishes; or not blanched, but stewed with butter, if to be brown. When very strong you may parboil them with a turnip, for a stew, or forcemeat.

Some persons use brandy in made dishes. Wine in the proportion of a wine-glassful to a pint of gravy; the quantity of brandy small in proportion.

Truffles and Morells are a valuable addition to gravy and soup. Wash 1 oz. of each, boil them five minutes in water, then put them and the liquor into the stew.

Cut out the bone, break it, and put it on in cold water, with any trimmings you can cut off the rump; season with onion, sweet herbs, a carrot, and a turnip. Scum, and let it simmer an hour; then strain it into the stew-pan in which you stew the beef. Season the rump highly with kitchen pepper (which see), and cayenne; skewer and bind it with tape. Lay skewers at the bottom of the stew-pan, place the meat upon them, and pour the gravy over. When it has simmered, rather more than an hour, turn it, put in a carrot, turnip, and 3 onions, all sliced, an eschalot, and a glass of flavouring vinegar. Keep the lid quite close, and