been very slowly[313-*] stewed, and flavouring it with
bay-leaves and allspice.

Take about eleven pounds of the mouse buttock, or clod of beef, or a
blade-bone, or the sticking-piece, or the like weight of the breast of
veal; cut it into pieces of three or four ounces each; put three or four
ounces of beef drippings, and mince a couple of large onions, and put
them into a large deep stew-pan; as soon as it is quite hot, flour the
meat, put it into the stew-pan, keep stirring it with a wooden spoon;
when it has been on about ten minutes, dredge it with flour, and keep
doing so till you have stirred in as much as you think will thicken it;
then cover it with boiling water (it will take about a gallon), adding
it by degrees, and stirring it together; skim it when it boils, and then
put in one drachm of ground black pepper, two of allspice, and two
bay-leaves; set the pan by the side of the fire, or at a distance over
it, and let it stew very slowly for about three hours; when you find the
meat sufficiently tender, put it into a tureen, and it is ready for
table.

It is customary to send up with it a nice salad; see No. 372.

*.* To the above many cooks add champignons; but as these are almost
always decayed, and often of deleterious quality, they are better left
out, and indeed the bay-leaves deserve the same prohibition.

_Obs._ Here is a savoury and substantial meal, almost as cheap as the
egg-broth of the miser, who fed his valet with the water in which his
egg was boiled, or as the "_Potage a la Pierre, a la Soldat_,"[313-+]
mentioned by Giles Rose, in the 4th page of his dedication of the
"perfect school of instruction for the officers of the mouth," 18mo.
London, 1682. "Two soldiers were minded to have a soup; the first of
them coming into a house, and asking for all things necessary for the
making of one, was as soon told that he could have none of those things
there, whereupon he went away; the other, coming in with a stone in his
knapsack, asked only for a pot to boil his stone in, that he might make
a dish of broth of it for his supper, which was quickly granted him;
when the stone had boiled a little while, he asked for a small piece of
meat or bacon, and a few herbs and roots, &c. just merely to give it a
bit of a flavour; till, by little and little, he got all things
requisite, and so made an excellent pottage of his stone." See _Obs._ to
No. 493.

_s._ _d