Cookery for beginners

of the smoking steak, leaving unmelted pieces on the top. Sprinkle it also on both sides with pepper and salt — about half a teaspoonful of salt and a third as much pepper for a large steak. All this must be done quickly. Before you begin to cook the steak, prepare the butter and measure the salt and pepper. Cover the dish closely. If you have not a block-tin dish-cover, lay over the steak another dish, made very hot in the oven, and set both with the meat between them in the platewarmer, or in an open oven, or somewhere where it will keep hot for three minutes. Serve — i. e. put on the table — as hot as possible and on warm plates. Unless you have a hot water dish, do not send the steak into the dining-room until all have taken their places. Sometimes steak is tough. You shake your head over it as it comes from the butcher's basket. I know of an enterprising meat merchant who objected to a wealthy customer because he would have choice cuts. He was willing to pay double for them, but as the worthy seller observed: "We must sell second-best cuts, and he'd ought to take his turn." Like sin, tough steak ought not to be, but it is I If your turn to take it has come, lay it on a clean board, some hours before cooking it, and hack it on both sides, criss-cross, with a tolerably sharp knife, taking care not to cut too deeply. Rub both sides very well with the strained juice of a lemon, and set the meat in a cold place until you are ready to cook it. Do this over night, if you want it for breakfast. Very tough, fibrous meat is sometimes made eatable by this process. Mutton or Lamb Ohops. Cut off most of the fat and all the skin. A clean bone an inch in length will project from the smaller end when you have pared away the tallow and skin which would have cooked into rankness and leather. BROILED MEATS. 69 Put as many chops on the broiler as it will conveniently hold, and broil as you would beefsteak. Cut into the largest to see if it is done. If it is, lay the chops on a heated dish set over a pot of boiling water; butter, pepper and salt them, and cover them up « while you cook the rest. Serve as soon as the last is cooked, as they lose flavor with standing. Lay sprigs of parsley around the edges of the dish and scatter a few over the chops which must be arranged in neat rows, a small end next to a large. Broiled Ham. Cut even slices from a cold boiled ham. Divide these into oblong pieces about an inch and a half in width, and broil quickly over clear coals until a delicate brown touches the slices here and there. Lay in order on a hot dish. Broiled ham is appetizing, and should be accompanied by dry toast, lightly buttered. Larded Liver. •" I ^HE butcher will slice the liver, or show ■■■ you how to do it. When it is cut up, lay it in cold water in which has been stirred a teaspoonful of salt This will draw out the blood. Cut fat, raw salt pork into strips a finger long and a quarter of an inch thick and wide. In half an hour's time take the liver from the water, spread it out on a clean dry cloth, lay another cloth over the slices and pat gently to dry them thoroughly. Make holes an inch apart in the liver with a pen-knife or sharp skewer, and stick in the pork strips. They should protrude an equal distance on both sides. As fast as they are ready, lay them in a clean, warm {not hot) frying-pan. When all are in, set it over the fire, and let it fry rather slowly in the fat that will run out from the pork "lardoons." In five minutes turn the slices, and again ten minutes later. Let the liver heat quite slowly for the first ten minutes. If cooked fast it is hard and indigestible. Allow about twenty-five minutes for frying it.