Soyer's standard cookery

Peel the potatoes, slice them very thinly, and leave in water till needed. Peel and slice the onion and turnips and scrape the carrot. Cut all into small squares. Wash well; leave on a plate till needed. Take a little suet or two good tablespoonfuls of dripping. Rub this into half a pound of flour, and salt to taste, being careful not to overdo this, and a little pepper. Mix to the ordinary dumpling consistency with cold water, and shape into dumplings about the size of a big Brazil nut. And now for beef in the good old farmer fashion. Wash the beef well, but do not dry it. Sprinkle it with seasoned flour — that is, flour to which a little pepper and salt have been added — on both sides. Now grease the large bag thickly with beef dripping. Take the potatoes out of their bowl. Do not dry them, but sprinkle them lightly with the seasoned flour. Then take the potatoes, carrots, turnips, and onions, and mix them all well together, sprinkling them with a very little salt. Take a handful of this mixture and some dumplings and put them into the bottom of the bag. Then put in the flank of beef. Press it in as tightly and as closely to the vegetables as possible, and if the bag admits put a few vegetables on top and under the joint. Add the remainder of the vegetables, etc., and close the bag. Light the oven gas beforehand, let it get as hot as it can for eight minutes. Then place the paper bag on the grid, put the grid on the shelf of the oven, and close the door. Turn the gas down half way, and leave the bag in for from an hour and a half to two hours. Then take out, empty into a very hot dish as gently as possible. Stir well with a spoon which has been dipped in boiling water. You will then have a dinner fit for a king. If you have not a wire grid you can use the ordinary gas grid. In this case allow another quarter of an hour for extra cooking. If you would like a sweet for which no attention is needed, and do not wish to use another bag, try the following: — Place a little sugar at the bottom of a clean empty jam jar, add a pint of well-washed gooseberries or peeled and cut-up rhubarb, half a pint of water, and cook the same time as the beef. If cooked in a greased bag instead of a jar this will be doubly delicious. When done serve it with sweet milk — i. e., half a pint of milk thickened with a tablespoonful of flour or corn-flour, and sweetened to taste. Monday. What is left over from Sunday will make the dinner for Monday. Grease a bag well as before. Cut up the remains of the stewed beef into small square pieces. Dust these with fresh seasoned flour. Put two pounds of potatoes, cut small and dusted with salt, into a greased bag as before. Sprinkle the meat with a little powdered sweet herbs, put into the bag, and add to it a handful of either rice, barley, or oatmeal, which has been soaking all night in cold water. If the water has not been quite all absorbed, add this also. Now add the remains of any gravy which may be over from the previous day. Close the bag, place it on grid as before, and cook for sixty minutes. Turn out into a hot dish. Stir as before and serve. A jam turnover will be just the right sort of substantial dish to follow the beef. For this you must have a bag.