Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches

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