the beef with your hand. The spice will be found a great
improvement both to the taste and smell of the meat. Have ready a
pickle made precisely as that in the preceding article. Boil and
skim it, and (the meat having been thoroughly rubbed all over with
the spice) pour on the pickle, as before directed. Keep the beef
in the pickle at least six weeks, and then smoke it about three
weeks.

Smoked beef is brought on the tea-table either shaved into thin
chips without cooking, or chipped and fried with a little butter
in a skillet, and served up hot.

This receipt for dried or smoked beef will answer equally well for
venison ham, which is also used as a relish at the tea-table.

Mutton hams may be prepared in the same way.


POTTED BEEF.

Take a good piece of a round of beef, and cut off all the fat. Rub
the lean well with salt, and let it lie two days. Then put it into
a jar, and add to it a little water in the proportion of half a
pint to three pounds of meat. Cover the jar as closely as
possible, (the best cover will be a coarse paste or dough) and set
it in a slow oven, or in a vessel of boiling water for about four
hours. Then drain off all the gravy and set the meat before the
fire that all the moisture may be drawn out. Pull or cut it to
pieces and pound it for a long time in a mortar with pepper,
allspice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and oiled fresh butter, adding