ROLLED STEAKS. Cut a large steak from a round of beef, spread over it a forcemeat, such as is made for veal, roll it up like collared eel, and tie it up in a cloth. Boil it an hour and a half, and when done enough, cut it into slices. Prepare a rich gravy, a little thickened, and pour over the steaks.
ROMAN CEMENT. To make a mortar for outside plastering, or brick-work, or to line reservoirs, so as no water can penetrate it, mix together eighty-four pounds of drifted sand, twelve pounds of unslaked lime, and four pounds of the poorest cheese grated through an iron grater. When well mixed, add enough hot water, not boiling, to make it into a proper consistence for plastering, such a quantity of the above as is wanted. It requires very good and quick working. One hod of this mortar will go a great way, as it is to be laid on in a thin smooth coat, without the least space being left uncovered. The wall or lath work should be first covered with common hair mortar well dried. Suffolk cheese will be found to make the best cement.
ROOK PIE. Skin and draw some young rooks, cut out the backbones, and season with pepper and salt. Lay them in a dish with a little water, strew some bits of butter over them, cover the dish with a thick crust, and bake it well.
ROSE WATER. When the roses are full blown, pick off the leaves carefully, and allow a peck of them to a quart of water. Put them in a cold still over a slow fire, and distil it very gradually. Bottle the water, and cork it up in two or three days.
ROT IN SHEEP. When sheep are newly brought in, it will preserve their health to give them a table-spoonful of the juice of rue leaves, mixed with a little salt. If they are in danger of the rot, this mixture may be repeated every week or oftener, as the case requires.
ROUND OF BEEF. Cut out the bone first, then skewer and tie up the beef to make it quite round. Salt it carefully, and moisten it with the pickle for eight or ten days. It may be stuffed with parsley, if approved; in which case the holes to admit the parsley must be made with a sharp-pointed knife, and the parsley coarsely cut and stuffed in tight. When dressed it should be carefully skimmed as soon as it boils, and afterwards kept boiling very gently.
ROUT CAKES. To make rout drop-cakes, mix two pounds of flour with one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, and one pound of currants, cleaned and dried. Moisten it into a stiff paste with two eggs, a large spoonful of orange-flower water, as much rose water, sweet wine, and brandy. Drop the paste on a tin plate floured, and a short time will bake them.
ROYAL CAKES. Put into a saucepan a quarter of a pint of water, a piece of butter half the size of an egg, two ounces of fine sugar, a little grated lemon peel, and a little salt. When it has boiled about half a minute, stir in by degrees four spoonfuls of flour, keeping it constantly stirring all the time, till it becomes a smooth paste, pretty stiff, and begins to adhere to the saucepan. Then take it off the fire, and add three eggs well beaten, putting them in by degrees, and stirring the paste all the time to prevent its being lumpy. Add a little orange-flower water, and a few almonds pounded fine. Make it into little cakes, and bake them upon a sheet of tin well buttered. Half an hour will bake them in a moderate oven.
ROYAL PUNCH. Take thirty Seville oranges and thirty lemons, quite sound, and pare them very thin. Put the parings into an earthen pan, with as much rum or brandy as will cover them. Cover up the pan, and let them stand four days. Take ten gallons of water, and twelve pounds of lump sugar, and boil them. When nearly cold, put in the whites of thirty eggs well beaten, and stir it and boil it a quarter of an hour. Strain it through a hair sieve into an earthen pan, and let it stand till next day. Then put it into a cask, strain the spirit from the parings of the oranges and lemons, and add as much more to it as will make it up five gallons. Put it into the cask with five quarts of Seville orange juice and three quarts of lemon juice. Stir it all together with a cleft stick, and repeat the same once a day for three successive days: then stop it down close, and in six weeks it will be fit to drink.
RUFFS AND REEVES. These are to be trussed and skewered the same as snipes and quails. Place bars of bacon over them, roast them in about ten minutes, and serve with a good gravy in the dish.