The handy dictionary of cookery

Pick all the stalks, with their continuation at the back of every leaf, from one pound and a half of fresh spinach. Wash and chop it; put it in a three-quart stewpan with four ounces of butter; stir it over the fire for five minutes. Add one ounce of flour ; stir again three or four minutes, then add two quarts of chicken broth. Stir till boiling; simmer very slowly twenty minutes, and serve. It may be strained or not, according to taste. Note. — Spinach is the most complete specimen of green vegetables, and very valuable as an article of food. Steak, Grilled. Make the gridiron quite hot ; grease it with a little butter or dripping. Remove any gristle from the steak, and beat it well. It should have been well hung in order that the fibre may have had time to become tender. Place the steak in the hot gridiron, and turn it quickly about every four seconds. It will take about ten minutes over a good, hot, clear fire. Serve on a hot dish with a good gravy poured over. Stew, Brazilian. Take one pound of coarse beef ; cut it into small pieces ; put it in a jar ; pour over it a tablespoonful of vinegar, a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper, half a teaspoonful of salt. Skin and scald an onion ; chop it up finely. Wash and brush a carrot ; scrape it very thinly ; cut it into small pieces. Choose a young turnip ; wash it ; peel it rather thickly ; cut it up also. Put on the top of the meat, the turnip, carrot and onion. Do not add any water. Cover the top of the jar with a lid or greased paper. Place the jar in a pan of cold water ; put the pan over the fire and allow it to boil four hours, stirring the stew occasionally with a fork. Turn it out on a hot dish, the meat in the centre and the vegetables round it. Pour the gravy over and serve. — This mode of cooking meat will render a cheap and nourishing dish, with some delicious gravy, which is all preserved by cooking it in a jar. The soaking in vinegar has the effect of making it more tender as well as giving k a nice flavour. Stew, Exeter. Take one pound of beefsteak, or any lean part will do ; cut it up into neat pieces. Melt an ounce of dripping in an iron saucepan ; brown the meat well in it ; also an onion prepared and cut into rings ; remove them from the pan ; stir in a tablespoonful of flour ; then add a quart of water or stock ; stir to boiling ; put into it half a teaspoonful ot salt, a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper, a tablespoonful of browning. Return the meat to the pan ; simmer it slowly half an hour; then put in savoury balls to serve round the meat. To prepare the balls put into a basin half a pound of flour, a teaspoonful of baking powder, a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper, half a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of suet finely chopped, half a teaspoonful of powdered marjoram and thyme, half an onion prepared and finely minced. Mix all these well together ; make into a stiff paste with cold water ; form into small balls ; drop them into the stew after the meat has been cooking half an hour and stew an hour and a quarter. Dish with the meat in the centre of the dish and the balls round, pour the gravy over and serve. Stewed Fish. Make a white sauce in which to stew the fish. Put into a pan one ounce of butter ; when it is melted stir into it one ounce of flour and a pint of milk, a pinch of salt and M I7«