few hours
in water, dry with a cloth, cover with a coarse paste, put a little
water at the bottom of the pan, and bake in a moderate oven for 4 hours.
If it is not covered with a paste, be careful to put the beef into a
deep vessel, and cover with a plate, or it will be too crisp. During the
time the meat is in the oven it should be turned once or twice.

_Time_.--4 hours. _Average cost_, 7d. per lb.

_Seasonable_ at any time.

BAKING MEAT.--Baking exerts some unexplained influence on meat,
rendering it less savoury and less agreeable than meat which has
been roasted. "Those who have travelled in Germany and France,"
writes Mr. Lewis, one of our most popular scientific authors,
"must have repeatedly marvelled at the singular uniformity in
the flavour, or want of flavour, of the various 'roasts' served
up at the _table-d'hote_." The general explanation is, that the
German and French meat is greatly inferior in quality to that of
England and Holland, owing to the inferiority of pasturage; and
doubtless this is one cause, but it is not the chief cause. The
meat is inferior, but the cooking is mainly at fault. The meat
is scarcely ever _roasted_, because there is no coal, and
firewood is expensive. The meat is therefore _baked;_ and the
consequence of this baking is, that no meat is eatable or eaten,
with its own gravy, but is always accompanied by some sauce more
or less piquant. The Germans generally believe that in England
we eat our beef and mutton almost raw; they shudder at our
gravy, as if it were so much blood.

STEWED BEEF or RUMP STEAK (an Entree).

666. INGREDIENTS.--About 2 lbs. of beef or rump steak, 3 onions, 2
turnips, 3 carrots, 2 or 3 oz. of butter, 1/2 pint of water, 1
teaspoonful of salt, 1/2 do. of pepper, 1 tablespoonful of ketchup, 1
tablespoonful of flour.

_Mode_.--Have the steaks cut tolerably thick and rather lean; divide
them into convenient-sized pieces, and fry them in the butter a nice
brown on both sides. Cleanse and pare the vegetables, cut the onions and
carrots into thin slices, and the turnips into dice, and fry these in
the same fat that the steaks were done in. Put all into a saucepan, add
1/2 pint of water, or rather more should it be necessary, and simmer
very gently for 2-1/2 or 3 hours; when nearly done, skim well, add salt,
pepper, and ketchup in the above proportions, and thicken with a
tablespoonful o