Braised Beef Or Pot Roast

Four to six pounds of beef from the lower part of the round or rump. Place on the bottom of the pan six thin slices of salt pork and on the pork lay one-half cup each of carrot, turnip, onion and celery, cut in small slices. On the vegetables place the meat. Dredge well with flour, pepper and salt. Place in a hot oven for fifteen minutes. Then add two cupfuls of stock or hot water. Place slices of vegetables on top of the meat, cover closely with a pan. Cook slowly for four hours. When done, garnish the platter with vegetables, after being strained from the gravy. Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter, stir into it one of flour and slowly add the gravy. Cook ten minutes. Serve as a gravy with the meat. This way of cooking beef may be done in a pot, then it is called a pot roast.

Beef A La Mode

Use five or six pounds of beef from the lower part of the round, cut thick. Lard it well with a larding needle, or make incisions into the meat with a sharp-pointed knife. Press into them thin strips of salt pork. This is called daubing. It can be done by the butcher. Put several thin slices of pork or two table-spoonfuls of drippings in the pot. When hot, put in the meat and brown it on all sides by turning it, then dredge with flour, salt and pepper, half cover the meat with boiling water. Add to it one-half cup each of carrot, turnip, onion, cut in slices, and a sprig of parsley. Cover the pot tight and simmer slowly for four or five hours; add more water when necessary, having about a cup of the liquor when the meat is done. Place the meat on a hot platter, thicken the gravy a little with the vegetables, pour around it. This is very good cold.

Beef Stew With Dumplings

The cheaper cuts of meat can be used for a stew. The aitch-bone, or two or three pounds from the shin, or flank, or upper part of chuck rib. Stew can be made from cooked meat, the flank from a roast or left-ocer pieces of fresh meat. Remove the meat from the bones, cut in two-inch pieces, season with flour, salt and pepper, brown all over with fat from the meat or drippings. Put in the stew pan, add one onion cut in thin slices, one good-sized turnip, two carrots. Add boiling water enough to cover. Cook slowly for two hours, then add six potatoes that have been pared, sliced thin and soaked in cold water for half an hour. Cook for five minutes, then add the dumplings, having the liquor come up even with the potatoes and the dumplings resting on top. Cover closely and cook for ten minutes. Put the meat in the center of the platter, the vegetables and dumplings around the outside. Thicken the gravy a little and pour around the vegetables. Season the gravy more if desired.

Dumplings

1 cup flour.

1/4 teaspoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful baking powder.

Mix with one-half cup of milk into a dough soft enough to handle. Pat out in small cakes or roll and cut with a small biscuit cutter. Cook for ten minutes in the boiling stew, being careful that the water does not boil on them, as that would make them soggy.