"Valuable cooking receipts" by Thomas J. Murrey is a cookbook written in the late 19th century. It offers hotel-tested, reliable, and economical recipes arranged like a full menu, with attention to digestion and practical household needs. Readers get clear methods for oysters, soups, fish, meats, vegetables, sauces, and roasts, alongside serving tips, anecdotes, and occasional brand notes. It suits home cooks who want straightforward classic preparations with professional polish. The opening of the book features a publisher’s preface highlighting Murrey’s long hotel experience, his focus on economy and health, and a Carême anecdote illustrating the civilizing power of good cooking, followed by a contents list. It then launches into detailed sections: oysters (urging minimal condiments and offering raw, roasted, fried, patties, and poulette styles), soups (stock foundations, gumbo with okra or sassafras leaves, mock turtle, pea, tomato, oxtail, chicken, and beef tea for invalids), and fish (cod, salt fish, lobster, shad, eels, salmon) paired with an array of classic sauces. Next come principles of boiling and numerous boiled dishes (mutton, corned beef, tongue, ham, chicken, turkey, capon), a large entrée chapter spanning beef, veal, mutton, lamb, pork, poultry, game, tripe, and side dishes like macaroni and rice croquettes, plus vegetable entrées and omelettes with practical technique tips. A roasting section explains why most American “roasts” are baked, then gives precise guidance for beef, veal, mutton, lamb with mint sauce, pork, turkey with multiple stuffings, chickens, ducks, goose, ham à la Russe, and game birds (canvas-back, snipe, woodcock, reed-birds). The tone is brisk, opinionated, and service-oriented, mixing clear instruction with brief culinary lore, and the excerpt closes mid-discussion of reed-bird preparations. (This is an automatically generated summary.)