BEEF STEAKS WITH MUSHROOMS.—Take four pounds of the best sirloin steaks, cut thin. Season them with black pepper, and a very little salt. Put four table-spoonfuls of butter into a frying-pan, and set it over the fire. When it is quite hot, put in the steaks and let them brown. Have ready a quart of mushrooms, stemmed and skinned, and moistened with a pint of water, seasoned with a little pepper and salt, and thickened slightly with a good dredging of flour. Pour it over the steaks in the frying-pan, and then let them cook till thoroughly done.
Venison steaks will be found excellent dressed in this manner, but the venison must be fresh.
MINCED BEEF.—Take the lean of some cold roast beef. Chop it very fine, adding a small minced onion; and season it with pepper and salt. Put it into a stew-pan, with some of the gravy that has been left from the day before, and let it stew for a quarter of an hour. Then put it (two-thirds full) into a deep dish. Fill up the dish with mashed potatoes, heaped high in the centre, smoothed on the surface, and browned with a salamander or a red-hot shovel.
Cold roast mutton or lamb may be minced as above, adding some sweet-marjoram to the seasoning, and filling up the dish with mashed turnips instead of potatoes.
Also, cold roast pork; flavouring the seasoning with a little chopped sage. Cover the top with sweet potatoe, boiled and mashed, or with apple-sauce, that has been stewed as thick as possible.
TO STEW COLD CORNED BEEF.—Cut about four pounds of lean from a cold round of beef, that tastes but little of the salt. Lay it in a stew-pan, with a quarter of a peck of tomatoes quartered, and the same quantity of ochras sliced; also, two small onions peeled and sliced, and two ounces of fresh butter rolled in flour. Add a tea-spoonful of whole pepper-corns, (no salt,) and four or five blades of mace. Place it over a steady but moderate fire. Cover it closely, and let it stew three or four hours. The vegetables should be entirely dissolved. Serve it up hot.
This is an excellent way of using up the remains of a cold round of beef at the season of tomatoes and ochras, particularly when the meat has been rather under-boiled the first day of cooking it.