No. 5.—Plain Irish Stew for Fifty Men.
Cut 50lbs. of mutton into pieces of a quarter of a pound each, put them in the pan, add 8lbs. of large onions, 12lbs. of whole potatoes, 8 tablespoonfuls of salt, 3 tablespoonfuls of pepper; cover all with water, giving about half a pint to each pound; then light the fire; one hour and a half of gentle ebullition will make a most excellent stew; mash some of the potatoes to thicken the gravy, and serve. Fresh beef, veal, or pork, will also make a good stew. Beef takes two hours doing. Dumplings may be added half an hour before done.
No. 6.—To Cook for a Regiment of a Thousand Men.
Head-Quarters, Crimea, 20th June, 1855.
Place twenty stoves in a row, in the open air or under cover.
Put 30 quarts of water in each boiler, 50lbs. of ration meat, 4 squares from a cake of dried vegetables—or, if fresh mixed vegetables are issued, 12lbs. weight—10 small tablespoonfuls of salt, 1 ditto of pepper, light the fire, simmer gently from two hours to two hours and a half, skim the fat from the top, and serve.
It will require only four cooks per regiment, the provision and water being carried to the kitchen by fatigue-parties; the kitchen being central, instead of the kitchen going to each company, each company sends two men to the kitchen with a pole to carry the meat.
No. 7.—Salt Pork and Puddings with Cabbage and Potatoes.
Put 25lbs. of salt pork in each boiler, with the other 50lbs. from which you have extracted the large bones, cut in dice, and made into puddings; when on the boil, put five puddings in each, boil rather fast for two hours. You have peeled 12lbs. of potatoes and put in a net in each caldron; put also 2 winter cabbages in nets, three-quarters of an hour before your pudding is done; divide the pork, pudding, and cabbage in proportion, or let fifty of the men have pudding that day and meat the other; remove the fat, and serve. The liquor will make very good soup by adding peas or rice, as No. 1a.
For the pudding-paste put one quarter of a pound of dripping, or beef or mutton suet, to every pound of flour you use; roll your paste for each half an inch thick, put a pudding-cloth in a basin, flour round, lay in your paste, add your meat in proportion; season with pepper and a minced onion; close your pudding in a cloth, and boil.