om about three hours and a half, to four and a half.

Take three carrots, peel and cut them into small squares; peel and cut
ready in small squares a couple of turnips, with a couple of dozen of
small young round silver button onions; boil them, till tender; the
turnips and onions will be enough in about fifteen minutes; the carrots
will require about twice as long: drain them dry.

When the beef is quite tender, take it out carefully with a slice, and
put it on a dish while you thicken a pint and a half of the gravy: to do
this, mix three table-spoonfuls of flour with a tea-cupful of the beef
liquor; to make soup of the rest of it, see No. 238; stir this
thoroughly together till it boils, skim off the fat, strain it through a
sieve, and put your vegetables in to warm; season with pepper, salt, and
a wine-glass of mushroom catchup (No. 439), or port wine, or both, and
pour it over the beef.

Send up Wow-wow sauce (No. 328) in a boat.

N.B. Or, instead of sending up the beef whole, cut the meat into
handsome pieces fit to help at table, and lay it in the middle of the
dish, with the vegetables and sauce (which, if you flavour with No. 455,
you may call "beef curry") round it. A leg of mutton is excellent
dressed in the same way; equal to "_le gigot de sept heures_," so famous
in the French kitchen.

_Obs._--This stew has every claim to the attention of the rational
epicure, being one of those in which "frugality," "nourishment," and
"palatableness," are most happily combined; and you get half a gallon of
excellent broth into the bargain.

We advise the mistress of the table to call it "ragout beef:" this will
ensure its being eaten with unanimous applause; the homely appellation
of "shin of beef stewed," is enough to give your genteel eater the
locked jaw.

"Remember, when the judgment's weak, the prejudice is strong."

Our modern epicures resemble the ancient,[309-*] who thought the dearest
dish must be the most delicious:

----"And think all wisdom lies
In being impertinently nice."

Thus, they reckon turtle and punch to be "sheventy-foive per shent" more
inviting than mock turtle and good malt liquor: however bad the former
may be, and however good the latter, we wish these folks could be made
to understand, that the soup for each, and all the accompaniments, are
precisely the same: there is this only difference, the former is
commonly made with a "starved turtle" (see Notes at the foot of page