A casserole is a heavy earthenware dish with a cover. A substitute for it can easily be improvised by using any heavy earthenware dish with a heavy plate for the cover. A casserole presentable enough in appearance to be put on the table serves the double purpose of baking and serving dish. A suitable cut of beef or veal, and it may well be one of the cheaper cuts, as the long, slow cooking insures tenderness, may be cooked in a casserole. Poultry and other meats besides beef or veal can be cooked in this manner. Chicken cooked in a casserole, which is a favorite and expensive dish in good hotels and restaurants, may be easily prepared in the home, and casserole cookery is to be recommended for a tough chicken. The heat must be moderate and the cooking must occupy a long time. Hurried cooking in a casserole is out of the question. If care is taken in this particular, and suitable seasonings are used, few who know anything of cooking should go astray. Chopped meat also may be cooked in a casserole and this utensil is particularly useful for the purpose, because the food is served in the same dish in which it is cooked and may easily be kept hot, a point which is important with chopped meats, which usually cool rapidly. MEAT COOKED WITH VINEGAR Dishes of similar sort as regards cooking, but in which vinegar is used to give flavor as well as to soften the meat and make it tender, are the following: SOUR BEEF Take a piece of beef from the rump or the lower round, cover with vinegar or with a half-and-half mixture of vinegar and water, add sliced onion, bay leaves, and a few mixed whole spices and salt Allow to stand a week in winter or three or four days in summer; turn once a day and keep covered. When ready to cook, brown the meat in fat, using an enameled iron pan, strain the liquid over it and cook until tender; thicken the gravy with flour or ginger snaps (which may be broken up first), strain it, and pour over the sliced meat. Some cooks add cream. SOUR BEEFSTEAK Round steak may be cooked in water in which there is a little vinegar, or if the time is sufficient, it may be soaked for a few hours in vinegar and water and then cooked in a casserole or in some similar way. POUNDED MEAT Pounding meat before cooking is an old-fashioned method of making it tender, but while it has the advantage of breaking down the tough tissues it has the disadvantage of being likely to drive out the juices and with them the flavor. A very good way of escaping this difficulty is pounding flour into the meat; this catches and retains the juices. Below are given the recipes for two palatable dishes in which this is done: FARMER STEW