Practical home cookery

With regard to the mint, take care to have it well sifted. If the mint is properly dried it will crumble easily on being pinched with the fingers, but the only way to avoid the stalks is to sift it. Mint can be bought ready dried in bottles in Co vent Garden Market, and at all good greengrocers’ ; and as a small sixpenny bottle will last a twelvemonth probably, and keep good almost for ever if well corked, it is advisable always to have a bottle in the house. Another very excellent dish for cold weather is Irish stew. Irish stew has the following strong points in its favour as a dish for cold weather : — First, it retains the heat for a long time ; secondly, it contains a considerable amount of fat ; and thirdly, which makes it a desirable dish for all weathers, it is probably the most economical dish ever sent to table. The best joint for making Irish stew is neck of mutton. First cut off nearly all the fat, the reason being that when mutton is boiled the fat swells enormously. The fat that is cut off will make an admirable suet pudding — another dish adapted for cold weather — that can be flavoured with grated lemon-peel. Then pare about four pounds of potatoes, and cut them into slices, and allow them to boil for about a quarter of an hour ; by this means the water contained in the potatoes will be extracted, and all water held in roots is far from wholesome. Next slice up five large onions, cutting them crossways, so that circular rings fall in slicing. Next take a good-sized stew-pan — an enamelled one is best — and cover the bottom with slices of potato and onions ; add a little pepper and salt, and then cover this with a layer of meat, the quantity required being about three pounds. The trimmed neck or loin of mutton should be cut into rather tliin chops, and the short bones at the end of the neck should, of course, be all cut into separate pieces. Again pepper and salt the meat, and cover it over with a thin layer of sliced potato and onion. The whole should be packed rather close — i.e. very little space should be left between the pieces, so that a very little water added will be sufficient to fill up the stew-pan, so that the top layer is moistened. Add this quantity of water, so as to avoid leaving any of the potato or onion uncovered. Next cover over the stew-pan, seeing that the lid fits close ; place something heavy, such as a four-pound weight, on the lid to keep it down, and allow the whole to simmer gently for about three hours. Be careful, however, not to let it hoil, as that is apt to render the meat hard. Also on no account take off the lid during the stewing process, as by so doing you let out the flavour. It will be readily seen how exceedingly economical this dish is, as absolutely nothing is lost, as the liquor is eaten as well as the potato and onion. In roasting a joint some of the flavour necessarily goes up the chimney, and in boiling a joint some goes into the water in which the joint is boiled. Irish stew is, however, one of the few dishes in which there is absolutely no waste whatever. One very seasonable and at the same time delicious sauce for winter is celery sauce ; and in country houses where celery is grown in the garden, and can be had in abundance, a little should always be served with boiled turkey or boiled fowls.