Beef Roll.—This is excellent for a journey if cut into sandwiches.
Mince very finely one pound of raw beefsteak and a quarter of a pound of cooked ham. The meat should be passed twice through the mincing machine. Add to the meat one well-beaten egg and two ounces of dried and sifted bread-crumbs. Season with pepper and salt, but be careful not to put too much. Then mix all well together with a wooden spoon. Shape the meat into a roll, and tie it up in a cloth, fastening the ends tightly. Boil the roll for three hours, and glaze it. When cut up into sandwiches, the mustard spread on the meat should be mixed with water in which a little horseradish has been grated.
Out-of-Door Meals.—A good way of packing a light summer luncheon is to take two strong biscuit-tins of the two-pound size, then to line them with lettuce leaves at the bottom and sides, and finally to arrange packets of sandwiches in one tin, with more lettuce to cover them. In the other tin set a loaf of bread and a plain luncheon cake, with a good clasp knife, and pack the space left with fruit and whole tomatoes. Bottles of cold tea should be taken in another basket, with a bottle or two of claret or light beer, and a few tumblers. For a boating-trip lasting a day or two the following suggestions may be found useful. When you encamp by the riverside, and your fire is burning, put on the saucepan with ten potatoes roughly peeled, three unpeeled onions, and a couple of carrots sliced. Pour in just enough water to cover the vegetables, and boil them for twenty minutes, keeping the lid of the saucepan tightly closed. After twenty minutes pour off the water, and put into the saucepan the contents of a one-pound tin of haricot-mutton, or beef, or Irish stew, and stir in two large spoonfuls of Bovril or Liebig’s Essence of Meat. If Worcester sauce is liked, add a tea-spoonful of that. Stir all well together, and continue to stir the stew over a hot fire for five or six minutes. This makes a good dinner for two hungry men. If you can buy from a neighbouring garden some young potatoes and carrots use twenty of each. Do not peel the potatoes, only wash them and rub them with a coarse cloth. In washing up after such a meal use absolutely boiling water, for merely hot water is of no use. Fill your saucepan or cooking-pot with water, and when it boils scour it round a few times with a piece of house-flannel tied firmly to a stick. Do the same to the frying-pan. Put metal cups and plates into boiling water, also the blades of knives and the prongs of forks (keeping the handles out of the water). In this way they will soon be quite clean, and after a final dip in the river, and a rub with a dry cloth, they will shine like silver. If a bit of bacon can be procured do not fry it, but toast it on a toasting-fork before a clear part of the fire. The rashers of bacon should be cut thin, and they will be sufficiently toasted when the fat looks transparent. A gingerbread loaf, made according to the following family recipe, is useful for boating-trips, as the longer it lasts the better it is. Two pounds of brown flour, two pounds of treacle, a quarter of a pound of brown sugar, a breakfast-cupful of cream, two eggs, a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda dissolved in a little hot water, two ounces and a half of ground ginger, and a little chopped citron. Mix all well together, and bake in a moderately hot oven.
Cold Tea.—Cold tea, properly made, is much appreciated on journeys, and is generally liked by shooting-parties on hot days. But good cold tea cannot be made by filling bottles with the remains of the tea at breakfast. Cold tea should be drunk unsweetened, and if carelessly made it is flat and unpalatable. Wide-mouthed glass bottles with screw-tops, such as are sold for jam, are the best to use. Cold tea should be made from the best tea and freshly boiling water; it should stand four minutes only, and should then be poured into the bottles through a tin strainer. A couple of lemons and a sharp clasp-knife should be packed in the basket with the bottles of tea, and a little metal box of sugar can be added for those who like it.
Iced Coffee.—Make strong coffee from freshly ground berries, add cold milk and a little sifted sugar. Put the coffee into glass jugs, and set these on ice for at least two hours before use. If pieces of ice are put into the coffee the flavour is spoilt.
Water Biscuits. Family Recipes.—(1) One pound of fine flour and two ounces of butter well rubbed together. Add a pinch of salt. Mix with cold water to a very stiff paste, and beat it well with a rolling-pin. Break the paste into pieces the size of a walnut, and roll each into a round. Prick each biscuit with a biscuit-pricker. Put them on a very hot baking-sheet, and bake in a very quick oven.
(2) Rub an ounce of butter into a handful of fine flour. Make it into a stiff, smooth paste with warm milk and the white of an egg beaten to a froth. Beat the paste with a rolling-pin for half an hour or longer, for the delicacy of the biscuits depends upon the length of time they are beaten. Then take small pieces of the paste and roll them out to the size of a saucer. They must be so thin as to be almost transparent. Bake the biscuits very lightly.
Water biscuits are often liked at dinner instead of bread or toast.