BEEF STEW
Use for beef stew either cold beefsteak, the portions left from a roast, or uncooked meat.
1 Cup of beef cut into small pieces.
1 Teaspoon of minced onion.
2 Tablespoons of turnip.
2 Tablespoons of carrot.
½ Teaspoon of salt.
½ Cup of cut potatoes.
A little black pepper.
If beefsteak is selected, free it from fat, gristle, and bone, and cut it into small pieces. Fry the onion, carrot, and turnip (which should be cut into small cubes) in a little butter, slowly, until they are brown. Add them to the meat, cover it with water, and simmer for one hour. Then skim off the fat, put in the potatoes (cut in half-inch cubes) and the salt and pepper. Boil for half an hour more. Serve in a covered dish with croutons.
The vegetables are fried partly to give the desirable brown color to the stew, and partly because their flavor is finer done that way. A beefsteak stew is a very savory and satisfactory dish. If fresh, uncooked meat is used, cut it into small pieces and fry it in a hot buttered pan for a few minutes, to brown the outside and thus obtain the agreeable flavor that is developed in all meats by a high temperature. Simmer two and a half hours before putting in the potatoes.
When the left-over portions of a roast are used, the meat should be freed from all gristle, bone, and fat; these may be boiled separately for additional broth.
MUTTON STEW
Exactly the same rule may be followed for mutton stew as for beef. Do not forget to trim the meat carefully. Use only clear pieces of the lean. If a roast is used and there are bones, boil them in water with the scraps for additional broth. Mutton stew is good made with pearl-barley instead of potatoes, in the proportion of one teaspoon of grain to a cup of meat; it should be put in at the beginning of the cooking. A half teaspoon of chopped parsley is a nice addition, or a few tablespoons of stewed and strained tomato.