Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Put the lid with the potatoes on, and replace the tin at once in the oven. A second hour will finish cooking the meat, and ought to brown the potatoes. Before serving, pin a folded napkin neatly round the tin. Send up a hot plate ready to receive the cover. The cover must not be lifted off the tin till the pie is about to be helped. Savoury Stew. — ( Family Recipe.) — This is made from the part called in old days the “hoffie,” or “ hough” of an ox. It is now called the shin, and is the part extending from the fetlock joints of the hind legs to the hock. Take a good-sized hough, break the bone in two or three places, put it in a stewpan with a stick of celery, a bunch of sweet herbs, eight onions, one turnip, two carrots, and a tablespoonful of peppercorns. Pour in six quarts of cold water. Tie the pan up close and set it in the oven, leaving it there all night. If not strong enough let it cook two or three hours more, taking care it does not boil away too much. When done enough strain it through a sieve, take all the meat and gristly part away from the bone and skim off all fat. Put the meat into the stew with part of the onions after straining. If three pints of stew are sent to table add half a gill of good ale, a little salt, and a very little cayenne. Boil all up together. After the stew is put into the tureen add a few pieces of oatcake toasted brown. (It would be well to take the marrow out of the bone, but this is not mentioned in the original recipe.) Christmas Stew. — ( Family Recipe) — Put four quarts of water into a large stewpan. Add one pound of fresh beef and one pound of fresh mutton, cut into pieces the size of an egg, also the forequarters of a hare, an old fowl, a partridge (or an old grouse), a bit of salt beef, three or four sliced onions, three sliced carrots, one turnip cut up small, a bunch of herbs, and twelve peppercorns. Do not add any salt, as the beef will make it salt enough. Have ready ten thoroughly roasted potatoes, squeeze the insides among the other vegetables (not using the skins). Cut up a small loaf, and put the slices into the pan with the meat and vegetables. Let it all simmer over a very slow fire till the meat is quite tender, and the bread and potatoes have made it thick by being dissolved in the stew.' (There may also be four apples pared, cut in quarters, and put in with the rest.) This dish requires six hours at the very least. The longer it stews the better. Broad Beans and Bacon. — Choose a pig’s cheek which is not dry and hard, otherwise it must be soaked for four hours and will not be nearly so good as if cooked when fresh. Put it in a saucepan with five quarts of water, and let it simmer gently, allowing twenty minutes for each pound of meat. Shell two pounds of Broad Beans. Half an hour before the pig’s cheek is done take out two quarts of the liquid in which it is boiling, and replace instantly with two quarts of boiling water. Put the two quarts of liquid in another pan, throw in the Broad Beans, and boil them in the liquid for from twenty minutes to half an hour. Serve the pig’s cheek in a large hot dish. Moisten the Broad Beans with a spoonful of the liquid, and put some of them round the pig’s cheek in the dish, the rest in a vegetable dish. The remainder of the liquid makes excellent second stock.