Books and My Food: With Literary Quotations and Original Recipes for Every ..

MOST English people are great eaters of beef and cook it in a large variety of ways. A beefsteak pie is better known across the water than here. It should be made of cold broiled beefsteak cut in thin slices across the grain. If any bit of the outside is burned, discard it, as it will make the whole dish bitter. Sprinkle the pieces of beef with flour, pepper, and salt, add a chopped onion and two cupfuls of gravy made of melted butter, flour and water (the flour rubbed smoothly into the butter and boiling water added). Bake in a pudding-dish with a biscuit- .crust. FEBRUARY 17TH "My lord, I hope you are pepper proof." — Swift. CUT off the stem ends of sweet green peppers and remove the seeds. Stuff with a mince of tongue, veal, chicken, or lamb, mixed with an equal quantity of bread-crumbs, and seasoned with salt, butter, and a bit of onionjuice or tomato. Put the peppers close enough together in baking-dish so that they will stand upright. Cover the bottom of the dish with stock, or water enriched with a large spoonful of butter. Cook in a moderate oven for an hour. Remove and add flour and butter to the liquid in the pan. Pour over the peppers and serve. FEBRUARY i8th ''There is a physiognomical character in the taste for food. C — holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings." — Charles Lamb. TO make boiled apple-dumplings pare tart apples of good flavor and remove the cores; fill the holes with butter, sugar, and a little cinnamon. Have ready a dough made of two tablespoonf uls of butter chopped into a quart of sifted flour, in which has been well mixed a heaping teaspoonf ul of baking-powder and a little salt ; wet with two cupfuls of milk, to make a soft dough, and roll to a thickness of a quarter of an inch. Cut into squares large enough to readily encase the apples ; put an apple in each and fold together, pinching the edges tight. Tie up in small cloths, not too tight, and boil an hour, never allowing the water to stop boiling. FEBRUARY 19TH '[illustration: The greengrocer and his wife then arranged upon the table a boiled leg of mutton, hot, with caper sauce, turnips and potatoes. — Charles Dickens ("Pickwick Papers").] WITH turnips and boiled leg of mutton it is well to serve a dish of browned potatoes. Cut into strips of convenient size six cold mashed potatoes. Dip first into melted butter and then into beaten egg. Lay the strips carefully in a buttered pan; cook in a hot oven for twelve minutes. FEBRUARY 20th "I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre nousy I abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it." — ^Thackeray ("Roundabout Papers"). IF mutton must be boiled it should be served rare. Put it into a kettle of water that is boiling hard, and cook fast for fifteen minutes to keep the juices in the meat. Then draw the kettle to one side of the range and let the contents cook slowly ten minutes to the pound of meat. Add to the liquor a stalk of celery, a minced onion, a sprig of parsley, chopped, a sprig of mint, and a carrot. When the meat is taken up it should be washed over with butter. Strain the stock, season with salt and pepper, thicken with flour, stir in a lump of butter and a tablespoonful of capers, and serve as gravy. FEBRUARY 21ST ''Some bring a capon, some a rurall cake, Some nuts, some apples; some that thinke they make The better cheeses, bring 'hem." — Ben Jonson. NUTS and cheese have recently become a favorite combination. Form cream cheese into small balls and press half a walnut-meat on each side, first seasoning the cheese with a little paprika or with chopped green pepper. Arrange the balls on lettuceleaves or else on the tender white central leaves of the chicory-plant. Garnish with shredded red peppers and olives, and pour a French dressing over all. FEBRUARY 22ND