Soyer's standard cookery

During the time the meat is cooking prepare some vegetable stock thus: — Cut a small onion, two young carrots and a piece of turnip into slices and put them into a small saucepan with a pint of water, add a blade of mace, twelve whole peppers, a clove and salt to taste. When the stock has simmered for an hour add sufficient coloring to make it a clear brown, a large teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar, and five leaves of French gelatine, and strain in a bowl. Place the rolls of beef in the pie-dish and let them get cool; cut one and a half hard-boiled eggs into slices and put them among the beef, stand an egg-cup in the middle of the dish and pour in as much of the stock (which should be cool) as the dish will contain without letting it touch the paste. Cover the meat with a paste of medium thickness, put an ornamental rose in the middle, and bake the pie in a quick oven. When it has cooled a little, carefully remove the rose from the top of the pie and pour in a little more of the stock; then replace the rose and leave the pie untouched until the following day. Dresden Patties (Beef). Mince some cooked beef finely, taking care to remove all the fat and gristle; and a small quantity of cooked bacon, also minced, and a dust of salt and pepper. Spread some clarified dripping evenly over a small stewpan, put in two teaspoonfuls of minced onion and let it fry for a few minutes until it shows signs of becoming brown, then add the minced meat and stir it constantly for eight minutes. Pour in sufficient nicely flavored, thick, brown sauce to moisten the mince, draw the pan to the side of the stove and let it simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes. Cut some slices of bread from a " tin " loaf of about one inch in thickness, stamp them out into mediumsize rounds with a cutter, mark the bread in the middle but without cutting it through; dip the rounds of bread quickly into milk, then brush them over with some beaten egg, and after covering them thickly with fine dry breadcrumbs, fry them at once in plenty of boiling fat. Take care the bread does not become more than a golden brown, and after draining it on paper, remove the portion from each round which was marked with the small cutter, and fill up the little cases thus formed with the prepared mince. Have ready a little powdered parsley, scatter this over the surface of the mince and serve the patties at once. Fillet of Beef with Shrimps. Cut one pound of fillet of beef into neat square pieces of medium thickness, brush them over with oiled butter, sprinkle them with black pepper and a little cayenne, and grill them over a clear fire. Boil some rice in some weak stock until it is quite tender and the liquid has been absorbed; season it with salt and pepper, add a piece of butter to it, and mold it on a hot dish into a smooth border, and dish up the fillets on it. Make half a pint of thick brown sauce, flavor it with a little tomato catsup, add a squeeze of lemon juice and a few drops of carmine to it, and pour half of it into a small saucepan ; then stir in a quarter of a pint of pickled shrimps. As soon as they are thoroughly hot, place about a teaspoonful of the sauce and shrimps in the middle of each fillet and scatter a little chopped parsley over the top.