The English, generally speaking, are very deficient in the practice of culinary economy; a French family would live well on what is often wasted in an English kitchen: the bones, dripping, pot-liquor, remains of fish, vegetables, &c., which are too often consigned to the grease-pot or the dust-heap, especially where pigs or fowls are not kept, might, by a very trifling degree of management on the part of the cook, or mistress of a family, be converted into sources of daily support and comfort, at least to some poor pensioner or other, at an expense that even the miser could scarcely grudge.

Boil the head an hour and a half, or rather more. After dining from it, cut the remaining meat off in slices. Boil the bones in a little of the liquor for three hours; then strain it off, let it remain till next day, and then take off the fat.

—Boil two eggs for five minutes; let them get cold, then lay them in slices at the bottom of a pie-dish, and put alternate layers of meat and jelly, with pepper and chopped lemon also alternately, till the dish is full; cover with a crust and bake it. Next day turn the pie out upside down.

Make a thick pudding crust, line a dish with it, or what is better, a cake-tin; put a layer of sliced onions, then a layer of salt beef cut in slices, a layer of sliced potatoes, a layer of pork, and another of onions; strew pepper over all, cover with a crust, and tie down tightly with a cloth previously dipped in boiling water and floured. Boil for two hours, and serve hot in a dish.

Cut three pounds of rump-steak (that has been kept till tender) into pieces half as big as your hand, trim off all the skin, sinews, and every part which has not indisputable pretensions to be eaten, and beat them with a chopper. Chop very fine half a dozen shalots, and add to them half an ounce of pepper and salt mixed; strew some of the seasoning at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of steak, then some more of the seasoning, and so on till the dish is full; add half a gill of mushroom ketchup, and the same quantity of gravy, or red wine; cover it as in the preceding receipt, and bake it two hours. Large oysters, parboiled, bearded, and laid alternately with the steaks—their liquor reduced and substituted instead of the ketchup and wine, will impart a delicious flavour to the pie.

Put two pounds and a half of flour on the pasteboard, —and set on the fire, in a saucepan, three quarters of a pint of water, and half a pound of good lard. When the water boils, make a hole in the middle of the flour, pour in the water and lard by degrees, gently incorporating the flour with a spoon, and when it is well mixed, knead it with your hands till it becomes stiff; dredge a little flour to prevent it sticking to the board, or you cannot make it look smooth. Roll the dough with your hands—the rolling-pin must not be used—to about the thickness of a quart pot; leave a little for the covers, and cut the remainder into six circular discs. Take each of these pieces in succession; put one hand in the middle, and keep the other close on the outside till you have worked it either into an oval or a round shape.

Have your meat ready cut, and seasoned with pepper and salt; if pork, cut it in small slices—the griskin is the best for pasties: if you use mutton, cut it in very neat cutlets, and put them in the pies as you make them; roll out the covers with the rolling-pin, and cut them to the size of the pies, wet them round the edge, put them on the pie. Then press the paste of each pie and its cover together with the thumb and finger, and lastly, nick the edge all round with the back of a knife, and bake them an hour and a half.

The birds are roasted like common ducks, but without stuffing, and with a rather less allowance of time for cooking. For example, a full-sized duck will take from three-quarters of an hour to an hour in roasting, but a wild duck will take from forty to fifty minutes. Before carving the knife should be drawn longitudinally along the breast, and upon these a little cayenne pepper must be sprinkled, and a lemon squeezed. They require a good made gravy, as described below. They are excellent half roasted and hashed in a good gravy made as follows:

Simmer a teacupful of port wine, the same quantity of good gravy, a small shalot, with pepper, nutmeg, mace, and salt to taste, for about ten minutes; put in a bit of butter and flour; give it all one boil, and pour it over the birds, or serve in a sauce tureen.

These birds may be roasted or half roasted and baked, according to the directions given for wild duck, and served up with, a sauce or gravy made in precisely the same way. A widgeon will take as long to roast as a wild duck, but a teal, being a smaller bird, will take only from twenty to thirty minutes.

Put into the body of the bird a seasoning of parboiled onions mixed with finely-chopped sage, salt, pepper, and a slice of butter. Place it before a brisk fire, but not sufficiently near to be scorched; baste it constantly, and when the breast is well plumped, and the steam from it draws towards the fire, dish and serve it quickly, with a little good brown gravy poured round them, and also some in a gravy tureen. Young ducks will take about half an hour to roast; full-sized ones from three-quarters of an hour to an hour.

Let the bird hang as long as it can be kept without being offensive. Pick it carefully, and singe it; wipe the inside thoroughly with a clean cloth, truss it with the head turned under the wing and the legs drawn close together, but not crossed. Flour partridges prepared in this manner when first laid to the fire, and baste them plentifully with butter. Serve them with bread sauce and good brown gravy.

Skin a brace of well-kept partridges, and cut them into pieces; line a deep basin with suet crust, and lay in the pieces, which should be rather highly seasoned with white pepper and cayenne, and moderately with salt. Pour in water for the gravy, close the pudding carefully, and boil it for three hours or three hours and a half. When mushrooms are plentiful, put a layer of buttons or small mushrooms, cleaned as for pickling, alternately with a layer of partridge in filling tho pudding. The crust may he left untouched and merely emptied of its contents, where it is objected to, or a richer crust made with butter may be used instead of the ordinary suet crust.

The ptarmigan, which is either a variety of grouse or grouse in its winter plumage, and black game, when roasted, are cooked in precisely the same manner as grouse.

Truss the birds in the same manner as pheasants, and set down before a brisk fire. When nearly ready—they will be done in from twenty to twenty-five minutes—baste well with butter and sprinkle with flour in order to froth them, and send to table with some good brown gravy and some fried bread crumbs and bread sauce. These accompaniments should be served in different sauce tureens.

The following method of trussing a pheasant—which applies equally to partridges, grouse, &c., and to fowls, guineafowls, &c.—is prescribed by Francatelli in his "Cook's Guide":

Roast and send to table in the same manner, and with the same accompaniments as directed for Roast Partridge (

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Bone as many partridges as the size of pie to be made may require. Put a whole raw truffle, peeled, into each partridge, and fill up the remaining space in each bird with good forcemeat. Make a raised crust; lay a few slices of veal in the bottom, and a thick layer of forcemeat; then the partridges, and four truffles to each partridge; then cover the partridges and truffles over with sheets of bacon, cover the pie in, and finish it. It will take four hours baking.

Cut two pounds of lean ham (if eight partridges are in the pie) into very thin slices, put it in a stewpan along with the bones and giblets of the partridges, and any other loose giblets that are at hand, an old fowl, a faggot of thyme and parsley, a little mace, and about twenty-four shalots: add about a pint of stock. Set the stewpan on a stove to simmer for half an hour, then put in three quarts of good stock; let it boil for two hours, then strain it off, and reduce the liquid to one pint; add sherry wine to it, and put aside till the pie is baked.

When the pie has been out of the oven for half an hour, boil the residue strained from the bones &c., of the partridges, and put it into the pie. Let it stand for twenty-four hours before it is eaten.—

A pie made in this manner will be eatable for three months after it is cut; in short, it cannot spoil in any reasonable time. All cold pies are made in this manner. Either poultry or game, when put into a raised crust and intended not to be eaten until cold, should be boned, and the liquor that is to fill up the pie made from the bones, &c.

Take some of the middle or scrag of a small neck; season it with pepper and salt, and, put to it a few pieces of lean bacon or ham. If a high seasoning is required, add mace, cayenne, and nutmeg to tho salt and pepper, and forcemeat and egg balls, truffles, morels, mushrooms, sweetbreads cut into small bits, and cocks' combs blanched, can form part of the materials, if liked, but the pie will be very good without them. Have a rich gravy to pour in after baking.

The following is a capital family dish:—Cut mutton into pieces about two inches square, and half an inch thick; mix pepper, pounded allspice, and salt together, dip the pieces in this; sprinkle stale bread-crumbs at the bottom of the dish; lay in the pieces, strewing the crumbs over each layer; put a piece of butter the size of a hen's egg at the top; add a wineglassful of water, and cover in, and bake in a moderate oven rather better than an hour. Take an onion, chopped fine; a faggot of herbs; half an anchovy; and add to it a little beef stock or gravy; simmer for a quarter of an hour; raise the crust at one end, and pour in the liquor—not the thick part. (

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Shred a pound of suet fine, cut salt pork into dice, potatoes and onions small, rub a sprig of dried sage up fine; mix with some pepper, and place in the corner of a square piece of paste; turn over the other corner, pinch up the sides, and bake in a quick oven. If any bones, &c., remain from the meat, season with pepper and sage, place them with a gill of water in a pan, and bake with the pasty; when done, strain and pour the gravy into the centre of the pasty.

Pare, core, and quarter the apples; boil the cores and parings in sugar and water; strain off the liquor, adding more sugar; grate the rind of a lemon over the apples, and squeeze the juice into the syrup; mix half a dozen cloves with the fruit, put in a piece of butter the size of a walnut; cover with puff paste.

The custom of placing an inverted cup in a fruit pie, is to retain the juice while the pie is baking in the oven, and prevent its boiling over. When the cup is first put in the dish it is full of cold air, and when the pie is placed in the oven, this air will expand by the heat and fill the cup, and drive out all the juice and a portion of the present air it contains, in which state it will remain until removed from the oven, when the air in the cup will condense, and occupy a very small space, leaving the remainder to be filled with juice; but this does not take place till the danger of the juice boiling over is passed.

Excellent paste for fruit or meat pies may be made with two-thirds of wheat flour, one-third of the flour of boiled potatoes, and some butter or dripping; the whole being brought to a proper consistence with warm water, and a small quantity of yeast or baking powder added when lightness is desired. This will also make very pleasant cakes for breakfast, and may be made with or without spices, fruits, &c.

Take of flour one pound; baking powder, three teaspoonfuls; butter, six ounces; water, enough to bring it to the consistence required.

When much pastry is made in a house, a quantity of fine flour should be kept on hand, in dry jars, and quite secured from the air, as it makes lighter pastry and bread when kept a short time, than when fresh ground.

Take any cold meat, game, or poultry (if underdone, all the better), mince it fine, with a little fat bacon or ham, or an anchovy; season it with pepper and salt; mix well, and make it into small cakes three inches long, an inch and a half wide, and half an inch thick; fry these a light brown, and serve them with good gravy, or put into a mould, and boil or bake it. Bread-crumbs, hard yolks of eggs, onions, sweet herbs, savoury spices, zest, curry-powder, or any kind of forcemeat may be added to these meat cakes.

Roll out puff paste a quarter of an inch thick, cut it into squares with a knife, sheet eight or ten patty pans, put upon each a bit of bread the size of half a walnut; roll out another layer of paste of the same thickness, cut it as above, wet the edge of the bottom paste, and put on the top; pare them round to the pan, and notch them about a dozen times with the back of the knife, rub them lightly with yolk of egg, bake them in a hot oven about a quarter of an hour: when done, take a thin slice off the top, then with a small knife, or spoon, take out the bread and the inside paste, leaving the outside quite entire; then parboil two dozen of large oysters, strain them from their liquor, wash, beard, and cut them into four; put them into a stewpan with an ounce of butter rolled in flour, half a gill of good cream, a little grated lemon peel, the oyster liquor, free from sediment, reduced by boiling to one-half, some cayenne pepper, salt, and a teaspoonful of lemon juice; stir it over a fire five minutes, and fill the patties.

Prepare the patties as in the last receipt. Take a hen lobster already boiled; pick the meat from the tail and claws, and chop it fine; put it into a stewpan with a little of the inside spawn pounded in a mortar till quite smooth, an ounce of fresh butter, half a gill of cream, and half a gill of veal consommé, cayenne pepper, and salt, a teaspoonful of essence of anchovy, the same of lemon juice, and a tablespoonful of flour and water: stew for five minutes.

Cut a slice of bread two inches thick, from the most solid part of a stale quartern loaf: have ready a tin round cutter, two inches in diameter; cut out four or five pieces, then take a cutter two sizes smaller, press it nearly through the larger pieces, then remove with a small knife the bread from the inner circle: have ready a large stewpan full of boiling lard; fry the discs of bread of a light brown colour, drain them dry with a clean cloth, and set them by till wanted; then take half a pound of lean ham, mince it small, add to it a gill of good brown sauce; stir it over the fire a few minutes, and put to it a small quantity of cayenne pepper and lemon juice: fill the shapes with the mixture, and lay a poached egg upon each.

Chop about six ounces of ready-dressed lean veal, and three ounces of ham, very small; put it into a stewpan with an ounce of butter rolled in flour, half a gill of cream, half a gill of veal stock, a little grated nutmeg and lemon peel, some cayenne pepper and salt, a spoonful of essence of ham, and lemon juice, and stir it over the fire some time, taking care it does not burn.

To a pound and a quarter of sifted flour, rub gently in with the hand half a pound of fresh butter, mix up with half a pint of spring water, knead it well, and set it by for a quarter of an hour; then roll it out thin, lay on it in small pieces three quarters of a pound more of butter, throw on it a little flour, double it up in folds, and roll it out thin three times, and set it by for about an hour

. Or, if a more substantial and savoury paste be desired, use the following:

Sift two pounds of fine flour to a pound and a half of good salt butter, break it into small pieces, and wash it well in cold water; rub gently together the butter and flour, and mix it up with the yolks of three eggs, beat together with a spoon, and nearly a pint of spring water; roll it out, and double it in folds three times, and it is ready.

Use the white meat from the breast of the chickens or fowls, and proceed as for veal and ham patties.

Take a pound of lean beef, and half a pound of suet, remove the skin, chop it fine as for mince collop, then beat it well with a roller, or in a marble mortar, till it is all well mixed and will stick together; season highly, and make into flat round cakes, about an inch thick, and shaped with a cup or saucer, and fry of a light brown. The sausages should be served up on boiled rice, as for curry, if for company, you may do them with eggs and bread-crumbs; but they are quite as good without. Or they may be rolled in puff or pie paste, and baked.

Take cold roast meat, either beef, or mutton, or veal and ham, clear it from the gristle, cut it small, and season with pepper, salt, and pickles, finely minced. Boil and mash some potatoes, and make them into a paste with one or two eggs; roll out the paste, with a dust of flour, cut it round with a saucer, put some of your seasoned meat on one half, and fold the other half over it like a puff; pinch or nick it neatly round, and fry of a light brown. This is an elegant method of preparing meat that has been dressed before.

Choose some very fine bacon streaked with a good deal of lean; cut this into very thin slices, and afterwards into small square pieces; throw them into a stewpan and set it over a gentle fire, that they may lose some of their fat. When as much as will freely come is thus melted from them, lay them on a warm dish. Put into a stewpan a ladleful of melted bacon or lard; set it on a stove; put in about a dozen of the small pieces of bacon, then incline the stewpan and break in an egg. Manage this carefully, and the egg will presently be done: it will be very round, and the little dice of bacon will stick to it all over, so that it will make, a very pretty appearance. Take care the yolks do not harden. When the egg is thus done, lay it carefully on a warm dish, and do the others.

Take the meat from the bones of any kind of cold fish, and put the bones with the head and fins into a stewpan with a pint of water, a little salt, pepper, an onion, and a faggot of sweet herbs, to stew for gravy. Mince the meat, and mix it well with crumbs of bread and cold potatoes, equal parts, a little parsley and seasoning. Make into a cake, with the white of an egg, or a little butter or milk; egg it over, and cover with bread crumbs, then fry a light brown. Pour the gravy over, and stew gently for fifteen minutes, stirring it carefully twice or thrice. Serve hot, and garnish with slices of lemon, or parsley. These cakes afford a capital relish from scraps of cold fish.

The following is suitable for larger supper parties, or as a stock dish for families where visitors are frequent; it is also excellent for breakfasts, or for picnics :—Take a fine mellow ox-tongue out of pickle, cut off the root and horny part at the tip, wipe dry, and boil till it is quite tender. Then peel it, cut a deep slit in its whole length, and lay a fair proportion of the following mixture within it:—Mace half an ounce, nutmeg half an ounce, cloves half an ounce, salt two tablespoonfuls, and twelve Spanish olives. The olives should be stoned, and all the ingredients well pounded and mixed together. Next take a barn-door fowl and a good large goose, and bone them. Put the tongue inside the fowl, rub the latter outside with the seasoning, and having ready some slices of ham divested of the rind, wrap them tightly round the fowl. Put the fowl and its wrapping of ham inside the goose, with the remainder of the seasoning, sew it up, and make all secure and of natural shape with a piece of new linen and tape. Put it in an earthen pan or jar just large enough to hold it, with plenty of clarified butter, and bake it for two hours and a half in a slow oven; then take it out, and when cold take out the goose and set it in a sieve; take off the butter and hard fat, which put by the fire to melt, adding, if required, more clarified butter. Wash and wipe out the pan, put the bird again into it, and take care that it is well covered with the warm butter; then tie the jar down with bladder and leather. It will keep thus for a long time. When wanted for the table the jar should be placed in a tub of hot water, so as to melt the butter, the goose then can he taken out, and sent to table cold.

The following directions may be safely relied upon. Take a large dish, butter it, and spread a rich paste over the sides and round the edge, but not at the bottom. The oysters should be fresh, and as large and fine as possible. Drain off part of the liquor from the oysters. Put them into a pan, and season them with pepper, salt, and spice. Stir them well with the seasoning. Have ready the yolks of some hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine, and the grated bread.

Pour the oysters (with as much of their liquor as you please) into the dish that has the paste in it. Strew over them the chopped egg and grated bread. Roll out the lid of the pie, and put it on, crimping the edges handsomely. Take a small sheet of paste, cut it into a square, and roll it up. Cut it with a sharp knife into the form of a double tulip. Make a slit in the centre of the upper crust, and stick the tulip in it. Cut out eight large leaves of paste, and lay them on the lid. Bake the pie in a quick oven.

The mixing of salad is an art which it is easy to attain with care. The main point is to incorporate the several articles required for the salad, and to serve up at table as fresh as possible. The herbs should be "morning gathered," and they will be much refreshed by laying an hour or two in spring water. Careful picking, and washing, and drying in a cloth, in the kitchen, are also very important, and the due proportion of each herb requires attention.

The sauce may be thus prepared:—Boil two eggs for ten or twelve minutes, and then put them in cold water for a few minutes, so that the yolks may become quite cold and hard. Rub them through a coarse sieve with a wooden spoon, and mix them with a tablespoonful of water or cream, and then add two tablespoonfuls of fine flask oil, or melted butter; mix, and add by degrees a teaspoonful of salt, and the same quantity of mustard: mix till smooth, and then incorporate with the other ingredients about three tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

Pour this sauce down the side of the salad bowl, but do not stir up the salad till wanted to be eaten. Garnish the top of the salad with the white of the eggs, cut in slices; or these may be arranged in such manner as to be ornamental on the table. Some persons may fancy they are able to prepare a salad without previous instruction, but, like everything else, a little knowledge in this case is not thrown away.

Fill the salad bowl with lettuce and small salading, taking care not to cut up the lettuce into too small strips. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and, if liked, drop some mustard, mixed thin, over the salad, and strew a little moist sugar over it. Then pour over the whole three tablespoonfuls of good salad oil and one of Orléans vinegar, and turn over the lettuce lightly with a salad spoon and fork, that every portion of it may be brought into contact with the mixture. This mode of preparing a salad is far more expeditious than the ordinary way.