Culinary jottings

I advocate the making of a vessel specially for "jugged" dishes, as follows : — An oval tin, ten inches long, and seven and a half inches across ; one inchand three-quarters deep. The tin should have its upper edge turned outwards like a pie-dish, half an inch wide, so that a flat cover may be pasted closely to it, and it should have a ring at each end to serve for handles. The cover should be an oval sheet of tin slightly larger in its measurements than the interior of the tin itself. A vessel of this kind I can strongly recommend. I have found mine invaluable. Let us first take Ramasamy's "boiled chops." — Choose a good neck of mutton, and trim the little chops as neatly as possible. With the trimmings of meat and bone make a broth, assisted by an onion, some pepper corns, any scraps of beef, chicken bones, cold game, lean ham or bacon, in short any useful sundries. When done, skim, and strain it, you ought to have a breakfast-cupful of it. Now, scald the tin and cool it in cold water, cover the bottom of the tin with slices of onion, and arrange the chops thereon, covering them with two Bombay onions sliced fine, a carrot sliced, a young turnip sliced, a stick of celery cut into half inch lengths, two tomatoes sliced and drained, and a bunch of curled parsley. Then add to the broth a liqueur glass of brandy, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a salt-spoonful of salt, and the same of sugar. Pepper the chops pretty freely with black pepper before covering them. When arranged, pour in the broth, and seal the lid of the tin, all round the rim, with stiff paste, fixing it securely. Now, put the tin into boiling water, and keep it on the fire for two hours. At the time of serving, the lid should be cut off, and the tin, wrapped in a napkin, should be placed upon an ordinary dish, and sent to table immediately. Follow the same directions in "jugging" a steak, or a blade bone : in the case of the boned fowl, a little bacon, or some sliced bologna sausage, will be found an improvement, the broth being made, of course, from the bones and giblets. With game birds I would add a little sweet herb seasoning. Fish should be done in this way : — Trim the fish in fillets, season them with pepper and salt, cover the bottom of the tin with slices of Bombay onion, dotting in a dozen pepper corns, and two cloves ; put a layer of fillets over the onion, and pepper them with black pepper ; put in now a layer of sliced tomatoes, sprinkle some roughly-chopped curled parsley over them, and a table-spoonful of chopped capsicums ; pour in a little broth made from the fish bones and trimmings, with a glass of chablis, sauterne, or hock, cover the tin closely, and boil. A clove of garlic may be introduced in this dish by those who appreciate the faintest suspicion of that fragrant bulb, and the fine rind of a lime also. If made of two or three sorts of little fishes, with a pinch of saffron, and, instead of the broth, a libation composed of one table-spoonful of salad oil, two table-spoonfuls of chablis, and three of water, the effect will be pleasing to those who have eaten, and enjoyed a houillahaisse, for the broth produced by the fish and ingredients I have named is not unlike that excellent composition.