“Lord Avonmore, Lieutenant-Colonel J. Alleyne, Captain Burnaby and myself subscribed to a Christmas dinner of extraordinary charm, eaten with the Guards. The menu was:--soup made of bully beef, onions, rice and boiled biscuit, fish from the Nile, stewed bully beef and chicken _à la_ as-if-they-had-been-trained-for-long-distance-races-for-a-year, _entremet_ of biscuit and jam. Rum to drink.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
138. INGREDIENTS.--6 large onions, 2 oz. of butter, salt and pepper to taste, 1/4 pint of cream, 1 quart of stock No. 105. _Mode_.--Chop the onions, put them in the butter, stir them occasionally, but do not let them brown. When tender, put the stock to them, and season; strain the soup, and add the boiling cream. _Time_.--1-1/2 hour. _Average cost_, 1s. per quart. _Seasonable_ in winter. _Sufficient_ for 4 persons.
Sources: The passage is from Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford, The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — teal cloth, amphora stamp.