Beef Stew With Dumplings

Aitchbone, weighing 5 lbs. 4 cups potatoes, cut in 1/4 inch slices

Turnip Carrot

2/3 cup each, cut in half-inch cubes

1/2 small onion, cut in thin slices 1/4 cup flour Salt Pepper

Wipe meat, remove from bone, cut in one and one-half inch cubes, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Cut some of the fat in small pieces and try out in frying-pan. Add meat and stir constantly, that the surface may be quickly seared; when well browned, put in kettle, and rinse frying-pan with boiling water, that none of the goodness may be lost. Add to meat remaining fat, and bone sawed in pieces; cover with boiling water and boil five minutes, then cook at a lower temperature until meat is tender (time required being about three hours). Add carrot, turnip, and onion, with salt and pepper the last hour of cooking. Parboil potatoes five minutes, and add to stew fifteen minutes before taking from fire. Remove bones, large pieces of fat, and then skim. Thicken with one-fourth cup flour, diluted with enough cold water to pour easily. Pour in deep hot platter, and surround with dumplings. Remnants of roast beef are usually made into a beef stew; the meat having been once cooked, there is no necessity of browning it. If gravy is left, it should be added to the stew.

Dumplings

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons butter

3/4 cup milk

Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in butter with tips of fingers, and add milk gradually, using a knife for mixing. Toss on a. floured board, pat, and roll out to one-half inch in thickness. Shape with biscuit-cutter, first dipped in flour. Place closely together in a buttered steamer, put over kettle of boiling water, cover closely, and steam twelve minutes A perforated tin pie-plate may be used in place of steamer. A little more milk may be used in the mixture, when it may be taken up by spoonfuls, dropped and cooked on top of stew. In this case some of the liquid must be removed, that dumplings may rest on meat and potato, and not settle into liquid.

Boiled Dinner

A boiled dinner consists of warm unpressed corned beef, served with cabbage, beets, turnips, carrots, and potatoes. After removing meat from water, skim off fat and cook vegetables (with exception of beets, which require a long time for cooking) in this water. Carrots require a longer time for cooking than cabbage or turnips. Carrots and turnips, if small, may be cooked whole; if large, cut in pieces. Cabbage and beets are served in separate dishes, other vegetables on same dish with meat.