Mutton à la Jardinière.

5 lbs. of mutton, breast or neck, all in one piece.
2 onions, peeled.
1 carrot, peeled.
2 turnips, peeled.
1 pint canned tomatoes.
A few sprigs of cauliflower.
2 stalks of blanched celery.
Pepper and salt.
2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
1 tablespoonful of corn-starch.
Dripping for frying.

Fry the mutton (whole) in a large frying-pan, until it is lightly browned on both sides. Put into a deep, broad saucepan with all the vegetables (also whole) except the tomatoes; cover with cold water, and stew, closely covered, for an hour after they begin to boil. Take out the vegetables, and set aside; add boiling water to the meat, if it is not covered, and simmer steadily, never fast, two hours longer. The meat should be tender throughout, even the fibres. Turn off all the gravy, except about half a cupful, fit the pot-lid on very tightly, and leave the meat where it will keep just below the cooking-point. Strain the gravy you have poured off; leave it to cool until the fat rises. Skim, and return to the pot with the tomatoes. Season, and boil fast, skimming two or three times, until it is reduced to one-half the original quantity, or just enough to half cover the meat. Thicken with corn-starch, and put in the meat, with its juices from the bottom of the pot. Simmer, closely covered, half an hour. Cut the now cooled vegetables into neat dice; put the butter into a saucepan, and when it is hot, the vegetables. Shake all together until smoking hot, season, add a little gravy from the meat, and leave them to keep hot in it while you dish the mutton. Put it in the middle of a flat dish, and put the vegetables around it in separate mounds, with sprigs of parsley or celery between. Pour gravy over the mutton.

Try this dish. It is not difficult of preparation, diffuse as I have made the directions. It is, if well managed and discreetly seasoned, a family dinner of itself, and a very cheap one.