The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

and must be sought for in every situation, as the only medium of human existence. ALABASTER. The proper way of cleaning elegant chimney pieces, or other articles made of alabaster, is to reduce some pumice stone to a very fine powder, and mix it up with verjuice. Let it stand two hours, then dip into it a sponge, and rub the alabaster with it: wash it with fresh water and a linen cloth, and dry it with clean linen rags. ALAMODE BEEF. Choose a piece of thick flank of a fine heifer or ox. Cut some fat bacon into long slices nearly an inch thick, but quite free from yellow. Dip them into vinegar, and then into a seasoning ready prepared, of salt, black pepper, allspice, and a clove, all in fine powder, with parsley, chives, thyme, savoury, and knotted marjoram, shred as small as possible, and well mixed. With a sharp knife make holes deep enough to let in the larding; then rub the beef over with the seasoning, and bind it up tight with a tape. Set it in a well tinned pot over a fire, or rather a stove: three or four onions must be fried brown and put to the beef, with two or three carrots, one turnip, a head or two of celery, and a small quantity of water. Let it simmer gently ten or twelve hours, or till extremely tender, turning the meat twice. Put the gravy into a pan, remove the fat, keep the beef covered, then put them together, and add a glass of port wine. Take off the tape, and serve with vegetables; or strain them off, and cut them into dice for garnish. Onions roasted, and then stewed with the gravy, are a great improvement. A tea-cupful of vinegar should be stewed with the beef.--Another way is to take about eleven pounds of the mouse-buttock, or clod of beef, or a blade bone, or the sticking piece, and cut it into pieces of three or four ounces each. Put two or three ounces of beef drippings, and two large onions,