In order to be sure of making the real thing, if you have not (as you ought to have easily enough at Madras) the plants themselves growing in pots handy, see that you have a bottle of dried thyme, and one of marjoram, and a good bunch of fresh curly parsley, which should also be growing in boxes. Having these ready, work as follows :- Pare a good sized lime as finely as possible avoiding the slightest particle of white pith, and mince the peel as small as possible : weigh six ounces of dry, well sifted, stale bread-crumbs : measure a dessert-spoonful of chopped thyme (green) and one of marjoram (green), or take a table-spoonful of the dried leaves powdered - half and half : you must powder the leaves to get rid of atoms of stalk and stick : mince the parsley fine to the extent of a heaped up table-spoonful: chop up three ounces of fresh beef-suet, or butter if suet cannot be got: mix all these together with two spoons in a large dish, and dust the whole well with salt and pepper, lastly, binding the mixture with three well-beaten eggs: work this together, and the stuffing will be fit to use. Much depends upon the fine mincing of all the ingredients, and their thorough incorporation : the suet should be chopped as finely as possible. The colour will be, of course, a deep green provided you use the quantities of green herbs I have given : supposing, however, that you have only dried herbs, and that you cannot get fresh parsley; why not secure the colour by a good spoonful of spinach-greening, it is almost tasteless, and the colour is a great thing in stuffing. This, carefully made, is Martha's ordinary veal, or turkey stuffing, and ought to taste, just as nice here as that which we so well remember at home.

In mincing parsley, and all green herbs, be careful that, after washing them well, the leaves are well dried in a cloth: if chopped wet, the juice escapes, and the mince is never finely and evenly granulated.

Forcemeats are, of course, added to, and perhaps improved, by chopped ham, tongue, liver, mushrooms, bacon, a little anchovy, a casual oyster, and, of course, truffles. The addition of these things should, however, be thoughtfully carried out, and the proportions on no account left at haphazard to the tender mercy of the average Ramasamy.

The mixture which tradition has handed down to the Anglo-Indian kitchen for the stuffing of ducks and geese is nearly as disagreeable as that for the fowl. Whilst the latter may be described as a consolidated and greasy relation of the "bread poultice" that I denounced, when treating of "bread sauce," the former owes its flavour to violent onion, crude sage, and slices of half-boiled potato, mixed rather lumpily and lubricated with some chopped fat. Let me speedily tell you that potato has no place whatever in the best duck stuffing, and that the crude taste you dislike so much arises from the sage being chopped raw, and the onion being a common one instead of the mild kind called "Bombay," or "Bellary."

Duck stuffing should be made in this manner :- Take three Bombay onions the size of Badminton balls, wash, peel, and boil them in two waters to extract the acrid flavour. Whilst these are boiling, take eight tender look-ing sage leaves, and scald them in boiling water for five minutes, take them out, and when the onions are tender, turn them out, drain them dry, and proceed to mince them with the sage leaves, very fine. Add to this, five ounces of bread-crumbs, and dust over the mixture a liberal allowance of spiced pepper (which I give later on) and salt: when nicely worked together, add an ounce of butter or suet cut into dice and bind the ingredients with three eggs, it will now be ready for use. The proportions of this stuffing may be relied on : it is mild, yet pleasantly flavoured, and, "leaves not a trace of sad memory behind."

Goose stuffing is made in a similar way, and the composition is a pleasant addition to some joints of pork : let my friends on the Hills try a loin, boned, rolled, and stuffed with this, and roasted over a bright fire.

In all stuffings, and forcemeats, whether required for roast, boiled, or braised poultry; for the dainty galantine or the savoury pie, there are few things more useful to have at hand than "spiced pepper." It saves an infinity of trouble, and is an invaluable thing for a thousand dishes. I have been very successful with one that I concocted from Gouffe's receipt, which I feel it my duty to tell you of, and urge you to go and do likewise. You can bottle it, and take what you require from time to time.

1/4 ounce dried thyme leaves,... ........

1/4 do. do. marjoram, .........} from the bottle.

1/4 do. do. savory, .............

1/2 ounce nutmeg,

1/2 do. cloves,

1/4 do. whole black pepper,

1/8 do. Nepaul pepper, pound the above ingredients thoroughly in a mortar, and when ground to powder, pass it through a fine sieve : bottle it, and cork it down securely.

If you desire to make what Gouffe calls "spiced salt," mix one ounce of the above with four of salt. Spiced pepper is constantly wanted, and lends that nice sausage flavour to savoury pies, rolled beef, brawn, savoury pates, and all forcemeats.

Amongst the many barbarous tricks of Native cooks, there is an especial one which I ought to have brought to prominent notice before. I refer to the method which obtains in the cookroom of removing: the feathers from poultry, geese, ducks, and game. I cannot call it "plucking," for, as many of you know, the feathers are got rid of wholesale by plunging the bird into scalding hot-water ! The immediate effect of this ignorant habit is to harden and parch the skin of the fowl, to prevent the proper exudation and admission of moisture during roasting, and to render the flesh dry and tasteless. Birds must be plucked by hand, and their small down must be singed. To ensure this being done in your kitchen, order all birds to be brought for inspection when trussed for cooking, and the smallest experience will enable you to detect the parchment-like skin of the scalded bird, from that of the hand-plucked one, which will be cool and soft, with an unmistakable freshness which the other cannot have. A basket containing the feathers should also be shown, for they will expose scalding in a minute. It is needless to say that game is ruthlessly spoiled by this trick of the kitchen, and even the chicken destined for a curry is robbed of half its flavour by being scalded first. The practice is, of course, the offspring of idleness, - a subterfuge to escape trouble.

I would also point out that the common way of killing poultry in this country is inhuman, and, in a culinary point of view, utterly wrong. Setting aside the cruelty of cutting a fowl's throat, and throwing it on the ground to bleed to death in agony, what an idiotic thing it is to waste the very part of the bird from which its gravy, and juiciness are derived! White meats are bled in England simply to produce the necessary tint, but they lose much of their nutritious quality by the process. They, however, can afford to do so. Our poorly flavoured birds can ill endure the loss of an atom of the richness that they may possess. I maintain, therefore, that a merciful, and instantaneous death, by a heavy blow from a wooden mallet, would be pleasanter for the fowl, and far better for us :- the blow should be given on the back of the head.

Besides those I have mentioned there are still two evil practices to be noted to which Native cooks are prone. The first, is that of parboiling joints and poultry before roasting them: the second, is that of keeping joints, etc., far too long on the spit. As a rule, Ramasamy commences operations much too soon, and then keeps the meat on the spit before a low fire until it is wanted. Strict orders should be issued to prevent the first of these errors, and a table, showing the time that various joints require in roasting properly, should be hung up in the kitchen to prevent the second.

If the spit be protected from draughts with a screen, and the fire evenly maintained, and sufficiently brisk for the operation in hand -

A large turkey, 8 1/2 lbs. will take an hour and three-quarters.

A hen-turkey, 3 1/2 lbs. „ forty-five minutes.

A capon, 4 lbs. ... ,, fifty minutes.

A fowl, 3 lbs. ... „ half an hour.

A pigeon ... ... ,, a quarter of an hour.

A duck ... ... ,, twenty-five minutes.

A goose, 6 lbs. ... ,, an hour and a half.

A hare ... ... „ half an hour.

A partridge ... ... ,, a quarter of an hour.

A. snipe ... ... ,, ten minutes.

A florican or pheasant ,, half an hour.

A saddle of mutton, 7 lbs. ,, an hour and a half.

A sirloin of beef do. „ an hour and three-quarters.

A loin of pork, 3 lbs. ,, fifty minutes.

A loin of mutton, 3 lbs. „ thirty-five minutes.