Very full directions are given in Chapter VIII (Roasting) for roasting of all kinds. Yet to save referring back, I repeat the recipes, remarking that if you roast one thing well, and know why you do it, you can roast all.

A piece of ribs of beef weighing eight pounds will take an hour and quarter to an hour and half, according to whether you like it rare or well done.

Set the joint on a wire stand in a dripping-pan; dust it over with flour, but do not season it; put it in a hot oven; meat put in a cool oven, and both allowed to get hot together, will neither be sightly nor toothsome; baste it frequently.

If you choose, and your meat is fat enough to warrant it, you may put a few peeled potatoes in the dripping-pan, sprinkling them with salt, and turning them about when you baste the meat, so that they may brown; turn the joint over when it has been one hour in the oven, so that it may brown equally.

When the meat is done it should look of a rich dark mahogany color, brown all over but nowhere burnt. Take it up on a hot dish; if you have potatoes put them round it. Set the dripping-pan on the stove; having poured off the fat carefully, and pour into it a cup of boiling water; with a spoon remove every scrap of the sticky dark substance that clings to the pan, it will all dissolve on the back of the spoon; put in one saltspoon of salt and a little pepper; let this boil two or three minutes on the stove till dark and rich; then serve it in a sauce-boat; sprinkle the beef with fine salt, garnish it with parsley and horse-radish scraped (if you have patience and a sharp knife), it is far better than the ground horse-radish in flavor, and of course the long, delicate shreds are more ornamental, little tufts of the white and green alternately are a pretty garnish.