Ernest Belfort Bax - "German Culture Past and Present"

Rupert Hughes - "We Can't Have Everything"

John Masefield - "The Old Front Line"

Fred H. Colvin - "The Working of Steel"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

E >> Eliza Leslie >> Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches




Have ready a hot dish, and when they are done, take out the steaks
and onions and lay them in it with another dish on the top, to
keep them hot while you give the gravy in the pan another boil up
over the fire. You may add to it a spoonful of mushroom catchup.
Pour the gravy over the steakes, and send them to table as hot as
possible.

Mutton chops may be fried in this manner.


BEEF-STEAK PUDDING.

For a small pudding take a pound of fresh beef suet. Clear it from
the skin and the stringy fibres, and mince it as finely as
possible. Sift into a large pan two pounds of fine flour, and add
the suet gradually, rubbing it fine with your hands and mixing it
thoroughly. Then pour in, by degrees, enough of cold water to make
a stiff dough. Roll it out into a large even sheet. Have ready
about a pound and a half of the best beef-steak, omitting the bone
and fat which should be all cut off. Divide the steak into small
thin pieces, and beat them well to make them tender. Season them
with pepper and salt, and, if convenient, add some mushrooms. Lay
the beef in the middle of the sheet of paste, and put on the top a
bit of butter rolled in flour. Close the paste nicely over the
meat as if you were making a large dumpling. Dredge with flour a
thick square cloth, and tie the pudding up in it, leaving space
for it to swell. Fasten the string very firmly, and stop up with
flour the little gap at the tying-place so that no water can get
in. Have ready a large pot of boiling water. Put the pudding into
it, and let it boil fast three hours or more. Keep up a good fire
under it, as if it stops boiling a minute the crust will be heavy.
Have a kettle of boiling water at the fire to replenish the pot if
it wastes too much. Do not take up the pudding till the moment
before it goes to table. Mix some catchup with the gravy on your
plate.

For a large pudding you must have two pounds of suet, three pounds
of flour, and two pounds and a half of meat. It must boil at least
five hours.

All the fat must be removed from the meat before it goes into the
pudding, as the gravy cannot be skimmed when enclosed in the
crust.

You may boil in the pudding some potatoes cut into slices.

A pudding of the lean of mutton chops may be made in the same
manner; also of venison steaks.


A BEEF-STEAK PIE.

Make a good paste in the proportion of a pound of butter to two
pounds of sifted flour. Divide it in half, and line with one sheet
of it the bottom and sides of a deep dish, which must first be
well buttered. Have ready two pounds of the best beef-steak, cut
thin, and well beaten; the bone and fat being omitted. Season it
with pepper and salt. Spread a layer of the steak at the bottom of
the pie, and on it a layer of sliced potato, and a few small bits
of butter rolled in flour. Then another layer of meat, potato,
&c., till the dish is full. You may greatly improve the flavour by
adding mushrooms, or chopped clams or oysters, leaving out the
hard parts. If you use clams or oysters, moisten the other
ingredients with a little of their liquor. If not, pour in, at the
last, half a pint of cold water, or less if the pie is small.
Cover the pie with the other sheet of paste as a lid, and notch
the edges handsomely, having reserved a little of the paste to
make a flower or tulip to stick in the slit at the top. Bake it in
a quick oven an hour and a quarter, or longer, in proportion to
its size. Send it to table hot.

You may make a similar pie of mutton chops, or veal cutlets, or
venison steaks, always leaving out the bone and fat.

Many persons in making pies stew the meat slowly in a little water
till about half done, and they then put it with its gravy into the
paste and finish by baking. In this case add no water to the pie,
as there will be already sufficient liquid If you half-stew the
meat, do the potatoes with it.


A-LA-MODE BEEF.

Take the bone out of a round of fresh beef, and beat the meat well
all over to make it tender. Chop and mix together equal quantities
of sweet marjoram and sweet basil, the leaves picked from the
stalks and rubbed fine. Chop also some small onions or shalots,
and some parsley; the marrow from the bone of the beef; and a
quarter of a pound, or more of suet. Add two penny rolls of stale
bread grated; and pepper, salt, and nutmeg to your taste. Mix all
these ingredients well, and bind them together with the beaten
yolks of four eggs. Fill with this seasoning the place from whence
you took out the bone; and rub what is left of it all over the
outside of the meat. You must, of course, proportion the quantity
of stuffing to the size of the round of beef. Fasten it well with
skewers, and tie it round firmly with a piece of tape, so as to
keep it compact and in good shape. It is best to prepare the meat
the day before it is to be cooked.

Cover the bottom of a stew-pan with slices of bacon. Lay the beef
upon them, and cover the top of the meat with more slices of
bacon. Place round it four large onions, four carrots, and four
turnips, all cut in thick slices. Pour in from half a pint to a
pint of water, and if convenient, add two calves' feet cut in
half. Cover the pan closely, set it in an oven and let it bake for
at least six hours; or seven or eight, according to the size.

When it is thoroughly done, take out the beef and lay it on a dish
with the vegetables round it. Remove the bacon and calves' feet,
and (having skimmed the fat from the gravy carefully) strain it
into a small sauce-pan; set it on hot coals, and stir into it a
tea-cupful of port wine, and the same quantity of pickled
mushrooms. Let it just come to a boil, and then send it to table
in a sauce-tureen.

If the beef is to be eaten cold, you may ornament it as follows:--
Glaze it all over with beaten white of egg. Then cover it with a
coat of boiled potato grated finely. Have ready some slices of
cold boiled carrot, and also of beet-root. Cut them into the form
of stars or flowers, and arrange them handsomely over the top of
the meat by sticking them on the grated potato. In the centre
place a large bunch of double parsley, interspersed with flowers
cut out of raw turnips, beets, and carrots, somewhat in imitation
of white and red roses, and marygolds. Fix the flowers on wooden
skewers concealed with parsley.

Cold a-la-mode beef prepared in this manner will at a little
distance look like a large iced cake decorated with sugar flowers.

You may dress a fillet of veal according to this receipt. Of
course it will require less time to stew.


TO STEW BEEF.

Take a good piece of fresh beef. It must not be too fat. Wash it,
rub it with salt, and put it into a pot with barely sufficient
water to cover it. Set it over a slow fire, and after it has
stewed an hour, put in some potatoes pared and cut in half, and
some parsnips, scraped and split. Let them stew with the beef till
quite tender. Turn the meat several times in the pot. When all is
done, serve up the meat and vegetables together, and the gravy in
a boat, having first skimmed it.

This is a good family dish.

You may add turnips (pared and sliced) to the other vegetables.

Fresh pork may be stewed in this manner, or with sweet potatoes.


TO STEW A ROUND OF BEEF.

Trim off some pieces from a round of fresh beef--take out the bone
and break it. Put the bone and the trimmings into a pan with some
cold water, and add an onion, a carrot, and a turnip all cut in
pieces, and a bunch, of sweet herbs. Simmer them for an hour, and
having skimmed it well, strain off the liquid. Season the meat
highly with what is called kitchen pepper, that is, a mixture, in
equal quantities, of black or white pepper, allspice, cinnamon,
cloves, ginger and nutmeg, all finely powdered. Fasten it with
skewers, and tie it firmly round with tape. Lay skewers in the
bottom of the stew-pan; place the beef upon them, and then pour
over it the gravy you have prepared from the bone and trimmings.
Simmer it about an hour and a half, and then turn the meat over,
and add to it three carrots, three turnips, and two onions all
sliced, and a glass of tarragon vinegar. Keep the lid close,
except when you are skimming off the fat. Let the meat stew till
it is thoroughly done and tender throughout. The time will depend
on the size of the round. It may require from five or six to eight
hours.

Just before you take it up, stir into the gravy a table-spoonful
or two of mushroom catchup, a little made mustard, and a piece of
butter rolled in flour.

Send it to table hot, with the gravy poured round it.


ANOTHER WAY TO STEW A ROUND OF BEEF,

Take a round of fresh beef (or the half of one if it is very
large) and remove the bone. The day before you cook it, lay it in
a pickle made of equal proportions of water and vinegar with salt
to your taste. Next morning take it out of the pickle, put it into
a large pot or stew-pan, and just cover it with water. Put in with
it two or three large onion a few cloves, a little whole black
pepper, and a large glass of port or claret. If it is a whole
round of beef allow two glasses of wine. Stew it slowly for at
least four hours or more, in proportion to its size. It must be
thoroughly done, and tender all through. An hour before you send
it to table take the meat out of the pot, and pour the gravy into
a pan. Put a large lump of butter into the pot, dredge the beef
with flour, and return it to the pot to brown, turning it often to
prevent its burning. Or it will be better to put it into a Dutch
oven. Cover the lid with hot coals, renewing them as they go out.
Take the gravy that you poured from the meat, and skim off all the
fat. Put it into a sauce-pan, and mix with it a little butter
rolled in flour, and add some more cloves and wine. Give it a boil
up. If it is not well browned, burn some sugar on a hot shovel,
and stir it in.

If you like it stuffed, have ready when you take the meat out of
the pickle, a force-meat of grated bread crumbs, sweet herbs,
butter, spice, pepper and salt, and minced parsley, mixed with
beaten yolk of egg. Fill with this the opening from whence you
took the bone, and bind a tape firmly round the meat.


BEEF BOUILLI.

Take part of a round of fresh beef (or if you prefer it a piece of
the flank or brisket) and rub it with salt. Place skewers in the
bottom of the stew-pot, and lay the meat upon them with barely
water enough to cover it. To enrich the gravy you may add the
necks and other trimmings of whatever poultry you may happen to
have; also the root of a tongue, if convenient. Cover the pot, and
set it over a quick fire. When it boils and the scum has risen,
skim it well, and then diminish the fire so that the meat shall
only simmer; or you may set the pot on hot coals. Then put in four
or five carrots sliced thin, a head of celery cut up, and four or
fire sliced turnips. Add a bunch of sweet herbs, and a small
table-spoonful of black pepper-corns tied in a thin muslin rag. Let
it stew slowly for four or fire hours, and then add a dozen very
small onions roasted and peeled, and a large table-spoonful of
capers or nasturtians. You may, if you choose, stick a clove in
each onion. Simmer it half an hour longer, then take up the meat,
and place-it in a dish, laying the vegetables round it. Skim and
strain the gravy; season it with catchup, and made mustard, and
serve it up in a boat. Mutton may be cooked in this manner.


HASHED BEEF.

Take some roast beef that has been very much under-done,
and having cut off the fat and skin, put the trimmings
with the bones broken up into a stew-pan with two large
onions sliced, a few sliced potatoes, and a bunch of sweet
herbs. Add about a pint of warm water, or broth if you have
it. This is to make the gravy. Cover it closely, and let it
simmer for about an hour. Then skim and strain it, carefully
removing every particle of fat.

Take another stew-pot, and melt in it a piece of butter,
about the size of a large walnut. When it has melted, shake
in a spoonful of flour. Stir it a few minutes, and then add
to it the strained gravy. Let it come to a boil, and then put
to it a table-spoonful of catchup, and the beef cut either in
thin small slices or in mouthfuls. Let it simmer from five to
ten minutes, but do not allow it to boil, lest (having been
cooked already) it should become tasteless and insipid.
Serve it up in a deep dish with thin slices of toast cut into
triangular or pointed pieces, the crust omitted. Dip the toast in
the gravy, and lay the pieces in regular order round the sides of
the dish.

You may hash mutton or veal in the same manner, adding sliced
carrots, turnips, potatoes, or any vegetables you please. Tomatas
are an improvement.

To hash cold meat is an economical way of using it; but there is
little or no nutriment in it after being twice cooked, and the
natural flavour is much impaired by the process.

Hashed meat would always be much better if the slices were cut
from the joint or large piece as soon as it leaves the table, and
soaked in the gravy till next day.


BEEF CAKES.

Take some cold roast beef that has been under-done, and mince it
very fine. Mix with it grated bread crumbs, and a little chopped
onion and parsley. Season it with pepper and salt, and moisten it
with some beef-dripping and a little walnut or onion pickle. Some
scraped cold tongue or ham will be found an improvement. Make it
into broad flat cakes, and spread a coat of mashed potato thinly
on the top and bottom of each. Lay a small bit of butter on the
top of every cake, and set them in an oven to warm and brown.

Beef cakes are frequently a breakfast dish.

Any other cold fresh meat may be prepared in the same manner.

Cold roast beef may be cut into slices, seasoned with salt and
pepper, broiled a few minutes over a clear fire, and served up hot
with a little butter spread on them.


TO ROAST A BEEF'S HEART.

Cut open the heart, and (having removed the ventricles) soak it in
cold water to free it from the blood, Parboil it about ten
minutes. Prepare, a force-meat of grated bread crumbs, butter or
minced suet, sweet marjoram and parsley chopped fine, a little
grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt to your taste, and
some yolk of egg to bind the ingredients. Stuff the heart with the
force-meat, and secure the opening by tying a string around it.
Put it on a spit, and roast it till it is tender throughout.

Add to the gravy a piece of butter rolled in flour, and a glass of
red wine. Serve up the heart very hot in a covered dish. It chills
immediately.

Eat currant jelly with it.

Boiled beef's heart is frequently used in mince pies.


TO STEW A BEEF'S HEART.

Clean the heart, and cut it lengthways into large pieces. Put them
into a pot with a little salt and pepper, and cover them with cold
water. Parboil them for a quarter of an hour, carefully skimming
off the blood that rises to the top. Then take them out, cut them,
into mouthfuls, and having strained the liquid, return them to it,
adding a head or two of chopped celery, a few sliced onions, a
dozen potatoes pared and quartered, and a piece of butter rolled
in flour. Season with whole pepper, and a few cloves if you like.
Let it stew slowly till all the pieces of heart and the vegetables
are quite tender.

You may stew a beef's kidney in the same manner.

The heart and liver of a calf make a good dish cooked as above.


TO DRESS BEEF KIDNEY.

Having soaked a fresh kidney in cold water and dried it in a
cloth, cut it into mouthfuls, and then mince it fine. Dust it with
flour. Put some butter into a stew-pan over a moderate fire, and
when it boils put in the minced kidney. When you have browned it
in the butter, sprinkle on a little salt and cayenne pepper, and
pour in a very little boiling water. Add a glass of champagne or
other wine, or a large tea-spoonful of mushroom catchup, or of
walnut pickle. Cover the pan closely, and let it stew till the
kidney is tender. Send it to table hot in a covered dish. It is
eaten generally at breakfast.


TO BOIL TRIPE.

Wash it well in warm water, and trim it nicely, taking off all the
fat. Cut it into small pieces, and put it on to boil five hours
before dinner, in water enough to cover it very well. After it has
boiled four hours, pour off the water, season the tripe with
pepper and salt, and put it into a pot with milk and water mixed
in equal quantities. Boil it an hour in the milk and water.

Boil in a sauce-pan ten or a dozen onions. When they are quite
soft, drain them in a cullender, and mash them. Wipe out your
sauce-pan and put them on again, with a bit of butter rolled in
flour, and a wine-glass of cream or milk. Let them boil up, and
add them to the tripe just before you send it to table. Eat it
with pepper, vinegar, and mustard.


TRIPE AND OYSTERS.

Having boiled the tripe in milk and water, for four or five hours
till it is quite tender, gut it up into small pieces. Put it into
a stew-pan with just milk enough to cover it, and a few blades of
mace. Let it stew about five minutes, and then put in the oysters,
adding a large piece of butter rolled-in flour, and salt and
cayenne pepper to your taste. Let it stew five minutes longer, and
then send it to table in a tureen; first skimming off whatever fat
may float on the surface.


TO FRY TRIPE.

Boil the tripe the day before, till it is quite tender, which it
will not be in less than four or five hours. Then cover it and set
it away. Next day cut it into long slips, and dip each piece into
beaten yolk of egg, and afterwards roll them in grated bread
crumbs. Have ready in a frying-pan over the fire, some good beef-dripping.
When it is boiling hot put in the tripe, and fry it
about ten minutes, till of a light brown.

You may serve it up with onion sauce.

Boiled tripe that has been left from the dinner of the preceding
day may be fried in this manner.


PEPPER POT.

Take four pounds of tripe, and four ox feet. Put them into a large
pot with as much water as will cover them, some whole pepper, and
a little salt. Hang them over the fire early in the morning. Let
them boil slowly, keeping the pot closely covered. When the tripe
is quite tender, and the ox feet boiled to pieces, take them out,
and skim the liquid and strain it. Then cut the tripe into small
pieces; put it back into the pot, and pour the soup or liquor over
it. Have ready some sweet herbs chopped fine, some sliced onions,
and some sliced potatoes. Make some small dumplings with flour and
batter. Season the vegetables well with pepper and salt, and put
them into the pot. Have ready a kettle of boiling water, and pour
on as much as will keep the ingredients covered while boiling, but
take care not to weaken the taste by putting too much water. Add a
large piece of butter rolled in flour, and lastly put in the
dumplings. Let it boil till all the things are thoroughly done,
and then serve it up in the tureen.


TO BOIL A SMOKED TONGUE.

In buying dried tongues, choose those that are thick and plump,
and that have the smoothest skins. They are the most likely to be
young and tender.

A smoked tongue should soak in cold water at least all night. One
that is very hard and dry will require twenty-four hours' soaking.
When you boil it put it into a pot full of cold water. Set it over
a slow fire that it may heat gradually for an hour before it comes
to a boil. Then keep it simmering from three and a half to four
hours, according to its size and age. Probe it with a fork, and do
not take it up till it is tender throughout. Send it to table with
mashed potato laid round it, and garnish with parsley. Do not
split it in half when you dish it, as is the practice with some
cooks. Cutting it lengthways spoils the flavour, and renders it
comparatively insipid.

If you wish to serve up the tongue very handsomely, rub it with
yolk of egg after you take it from the pot, and strew over it
grated bread crumbs; baste it with butter, and set it before the
fire till it becomes of a light brown. Cover the root (which is
always an unsightly object) with thick sprigs of double parsley;
and (instead of mashed potato) lay slices of currant jelly all
round the tongue.


TO BOIL A SALTED OR PICKLED TONGUE.

Put it into boiling water, and let it boil three hours or more,
according to its size. When you take it out peel and trim it, and
send it to table surrounded with mashed potato, and garnished with
sliced carrot.


TO CORN BEEF.

Wash the beef well, after it has lain awhile in cold water. Then
drain and examine it, take out all the kernels, and rub it
plentifully with salt. It will imbibe the salt more readily after
being washed. In cold weather warm the salt by placing it before
the fire. This will cause it to penetrate the meat more
thoroughly.

In summer do not attempt to corn any beef that has not been fresh
killed, and even then it will not keep more than a day and a half
or two days. Wash and dry it, and rub a great deal of salt well
into it. Cover it carefully, and keep it in a cold dry cellar.

Pork is corned in the same manner.


TO PICKLE BEEF OR TONGUES.

The beef must be fresh killed, and of the best kind. You must wipe
every piece well, to dry it from the blood and moisture. To fifty
pounds of meat allow two pounds and a quarter of coarse salt, two
pounds and a quarter of fine salt, one ounce and a half of
saltpetre, one pound and a half of brown sugar, and one quart of
molasses. Mix all these ingredients well together, boil and skim
it for about twenty minutes, and when no more scum rises, take it
from the fire. Have ready the beef in a large tub, or in a barrel;
pour the brine gradually upon it with a ladle, and as it cools rub
it well into every part of the meat. A molasses hogshead sawed in
two is a good receptacle for pickled meat. Cover it well with a
thick cloth, and look at it frequently, skimming off whatever may
float on the top, and basting the meat with the brine. In about a
fortnight the beef will be fit for use.

Tongues may be put into the same cask with the beef, one or two at
a time, as you procure them from the butcher. None of them will be
ready for smoking in less than six weeks; but they had best remain
in pickle two or three months. They should not be sent to the
smoke-house later than March. If you do them at home, they will
require three weeks' smoking over a wood fire. Hang them with the
root or large end upwards. When done, sew up each tongue tightly
in coarse linen, and hang them up in a dark dry cellar.

Pickled tongues without smoking are seldom liked.

The last of October is a good time for putting meat into pickle.
If the weather is too warm or too cold, it will not take the salt
well.

In the course of the winter the pickle may probably require a
second boiling with additional ingredients.

Half an ounce of pearl-ash added to the other articles will make
the meat more tender, but many persons thinks it injures the
taste.

The meat must always be kept completely immersed in the brine. To
effect this a heavy board should be laid upon it.


DRIED OR SMOKED BEEF.

The best part for this purpose is the round, which you must desire
the butcher to cut into four pieces. Wash the meat and dry it well
in a cloth. Grind or beat to powder an equal quantity of cloves
and allspice, and having mixed them together, rub them well into
the beef with your hand. The spice will be found a great
improvement both to the taste and smell of the meat. Have ready a
pickle made precisely as that in the preceding article. Boil and
skim it, and (the meat having been thoroughly rubbed all over with
the spice) pour on the pickle, as before directed. Keep the beef
in the pickle at least six weeks, and then smoke it about three
weeks.

Smoked beef is brought on the tea-table either shaved into thin
chips without cooking, or chipped and fried with a little butter
in a skillet, and served up hot.

This receipt for dried or smoked beef will answer equally well for
venison ham, which is also used as a relish at the tea-table.

Mutton hams may be prepared in the same way.


POTTED BEEF.

Take a good piece of a round of beef, and cut off all the fat. Rub
the lean well with salt, and let it lie two days. Then put it into
a jar, and add to it a little water in the proportion of half a
pint to three pounds of meat. Cover the jar as closely as
possible, (the best cover will be a coarse paste or dough) and set
it in a slow oven, or in a vessel of boiling water for about four
hours. Then drain off all the gravy and set the meat before the
fire that all the moisture may be drawn out. Pull or cut it to
pieces and pound it for a long time in a mortar with pepper,
allspice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and oiled fresh butter, adding
these ingredients gradually, and moistening it with a little of
the gravy. You must pound it to a fine paste, or till it becomes
of the consistence of cream, cheese.

Put it into potting cans, and cover it an inch thick with fresh
butter that has been melted, skimmed, and strained. Tie a leather
over each pot, and keep them closely covered. Set them in a dry
place.

Game and poultry may be potted in this manner

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