Milk Soup

Boil four onions, two turnips, and a piece of celery, all minced in a quart of water with a teaspoonful of salt and a large pinch of white pepper until tender, then rub them through a sieve to a pulp. Mix this with the water the vegetables were boiled in, with a quart of milk, let it boil up, stir in two tablespoonfuls of French potato-flour mixed smooth in half a pint of cold milk. Stir over the fire until it has thickened, add pepper and salt to taste, and a tea-spoonful of castor sugar. Serve with fried bread.

Rump Steak

Choose that which the butchers call a "point steak." It is not only the most economical, but the best cut of the rump. If there is any doubt about its being tender use the kreatome, or steak tenderer, and having done so, put a teaspoonful of vinegar in a dish, pass the steak through it on both sides, and allow it to lie for at least an hour. When the time for cooking arrives, sprinkle each side of the steak with pepper and salt, put it on a gridiron over a clear fire, and cook quickly at first, to slightly harden the outside and cause the meat to retain its juices. With the steak-tongs turn the steak every minute, this prevents the possibility of its getting dry, as well as the loss of gravy, A steak of average thickness will take from ten to twelve minutes to broil properly.

If there is no objection to the flavour of shalot, shred one as finely as possible, put it on the dish on which the steak is to be served with a slice of butter, put it into the oven whilst the steak is cooking. Home-made catsup may be substituted for the shalot, or butter alone be used. When the steak is done, pass it on both sides through the butter, sprinkle over it a little more pepper and salt, and take care to serve very hot. Should the fire be slow, the steak must only be turned every two minutes, and when done it should be a rich brown on both sides.

The cooks of fifty years ago were averse from the practice of beating steaks; and, no doubt, in those days, when the edible animals, as a rule, were kept to a proper age before killing, and it was thought disgraceful to fatten up old cows or worn-out ewes for the market, it was unnecessary. Dr. Kitchener says:- "Do not beat steaks, which vulgar trick breaks the cells in which the gravy of the meat is contained, and it becomes dry and tasteless. N.B. If your butcher sends steaks which are not tender, we do not insist that you should object to let him be beaten!"

Fillet steak should always be peppered and salted for several hours before cooking, as the flavour is thereby much improved. A favourite accompaniment to this dish is maitre d'hotel butter, which is finely minced parsley mixed with cold butter, pepper, and salt. A small piece of this mixture should be laid on each slice of fillet the moment before it is sent to table.

How To Cook Haricot Beans

Put the beans in plenty of cold water, when they boil throw in a little salt, let them boil about two hours, and when the skin begins to crack strain away all the water, which put aside to help make soup, and put a thick cloth over the beans. Put the saucepan on the hob for one hour for the beans to steam, by this time the little water left with them will have dried up, and the beans will be thoroughly cooked and mealy.

Haricot Beans Fried

Prepare the beans as in the foregoing recipe, put a little sweet dripping into a stewpan, let it come to a froth, then put in the hot cooked beans with a very little chopped sage, toss them about with a wooden spoon till they are a pale gold colour; add a little pepper and salt, and serve very hot.

Pancakes

Mix eight ounces of the finest white flour with three gills of milk. Take care to mix the batter very smooth, putting a little milk at a time to the flour and working together by degrees. Beat up the yolks of three eggs, stir them well into the batter, add a pinch of salt, and when ready to fry the pancakes beat the whites of the eggs to a strong froth and stir them in lightly. Before commencing to fry the pancakes, dissolve two ounces of butter in the fryingpan, pour it into a basin, and for each pancake use one dessertspoonful of this dissolved butter. "When this is hot enough, measure four tablespoonfuls of batter into a cup, pour it into and let it run thinly over the pan, which hold over a brisk fire and shake gently until the under side is brown and the upper side set. Toss it, and let the other side brown; slide it on to a dish, sift sugar and fold the pancake into an oval shape, keep hot whilst the remainder are fried. This quantity of batter will make seven pancakes fried in a pan eight inches in diameter.

It is usual to. fry pancakes in lard, but they are only fit for the most robust digestions, and are rarely eaten with impunity. The art of tossing pancakes is one easily acquired. The cook should practice by tossing a plate mat of a piece of millboard cut to the shape of her pan; when she has learned to toss this, she will find it perfectly easy to manage a pancake. Many cooks recommend that batter should be made some hours before required for use, but the writer, in her own practice, has found if the batter is carefully mixed as directed, this is not necessary.