Part 8 (1/2)

REMOULADE.--Salad dressing.

RISSOLES.--Pastry, made of light puff-paste, and cut into various forms, and fried. They may be filled with fish, meat, or sweets.

ROUX.--Brown and white; French thickening.

SALMI.--Ragout of game previously roasted.

SAUCE PIQUANTE.--A sharp sauce, in which somewhat of a vinegar flavour predominates.

SAUTER.--To dress with sauce in a saucepan, repeatedly moving it about.

TAMIS.--Tammy, a sort of open cloth or sieve through which to strain broth and sauces, so as to rid them of small bones, froth, &c.

TOURTE.--Tart. Fruit pie.

TROUSSER.--To truss a bird; to put together the body and tie the wings and thighs, in order to round it for roasting or boiling, each being tied then with packthread, to keep it in the required form.

VOL-AU-VENT.--A rich crust of very fine puff-paste, which may be filled with various delicate ragouts or frica.s.sees, of fish, flesh, or fowl.

Fruit may also be inclosed in a _vol-au-vent_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

SOUPS.

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING SOUPS.

88. LEAN, JUICY BEEF, MUTTON, AND VEAL, form the basis of all good soups; therefore it is advisable to procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and such as are fresh-killed. Stale meat renders them bad, and fat is not so well adapted for making them. The princ.i.p.al art in composing good rich soup, is so to proportion the several ingredients that the flavour of one shall not predominate over another, and that all the articles of which it is composed, shall form an agreeable whole. To accomplish this, care must be taken that the roots and herbs are perfectly well cleaned, and that the water is proportioned to the quant.i.ty of meat and other ingredients. Generally a quart of water may be allowed to a pound of meat for soups, and half the quant.i.ty for gravies. In making soups or gravies, gentle stewing or simmering is incomparably the best. It may be remarked, however, that a really good soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, although, perhaps, greater wholesomeness is obtained by an occasional exposure to the air.

Soups will, in general, take from three to six hours doing, and are much better prepared the day before they are wanted. When the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed; and when it is poured off, care must be taken not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve. A tamis is the best strainer, and if the soup is strained while it is hot, let the tamis or cloth be previously soaked in cold water.

Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups about the consistence of cream. To thicken and give body to soups and gravies, potato-mucilage, arrow-root, bread-raspings, isingla.s.s, flour and b.u.t.ter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well together, are used. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit of b.u.t.ter and flour, and rubbed through a sieve, and gradually incorporated with the soup, will be found an excellent addition. When the soup appears to be _too thin_ or _too weak_, the cover of the boiler should be taken off, and the contents allowed to boil till some of the watery parts have evaporated; or some of the thickening materials, above mentioned, should be added. When soups and gravies are kept from day to day in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh scalded pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar. In temperate weather, every other day may be sufficient.

89. VARIOUS HERBS AND VEGETABLES are required for the purpose of making soups and gravies. Of these the princ.i.p.al are,--Scotch barley, pearl barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, bread-raspings, pease, beans, rice, vermicelli, macaroni, isingla.s.s, potato-mucilage, mushroom or mushroom ketchup, champignons, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, turnips, garlic, shalots, and onions. Sliced onions, fried with b.u.t.ter and flour till they are browned, and then rubbed through a sieve, are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of many of the fine relishes furnished by the cook. The older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour. Leeks, cuc.u.mber, or burnet vinegar; celery or celery-seed pounded. The latter, though equally strong, does not impart the delicate sweetness of the fresh vegetable; and when used as a subst.i.tute, its flavour should be corrected by the addition of a bit of sugar. Cress-seed, parsley, common thyme, lemon thyme, orange thyme, knotted marjoram, sage, mint, winter savoury, and basil. As fresh green basil is seldom to be procured, and its fine flavour is soon lost, the best way of preserving the extract is by pouring wine on the fresh leaves.

90. FOR THE SEASONING OF SOUPS, bay-leaves, tomato, tarragon, chervil, burnet, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, mace, black and white pepper, essence of anchovy, lemon-peel, and juice, and Seville orange-juice, are all taken. The latter imparts a finer flavour than the lemon, and the acid is much milder. These materials, with wine, mushroom ketchup, Harvey's sauce, tomato sauce, combined in various proportions, are, with other ingredients, manipulated into an almost endless variety of excellent soups and gravies. Soups, which are intended to const.i.tute the princ.i.p.al part of a meal, certainly ought not to be flavoured like sauces, which are only designed to give a relish to some particular dish.

SOUP, BROTH AND BOUILLON.

91. IT HAS BEEN a.s.sERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this, we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half philosophers, half _chefs_, that we are the _worst_ cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the ”broth” of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place to the _bouillon_, or common soup of France. ”_Three_ hot meals of broth and meat, for about the price of ONE roasting joint,” our Scottish brothers and sisters get, they say; and we hasten to a.s.sent to what we think is now a very well-ascertained fact. We are glad to note, however, that soups of vegetables, fish, meat, and game, are now very frequently found in the homes of the English middle cla.s.ses, as well as in the mansions of the wealthier and more aristocratic; and we take this to be one evidence, that we are on the right road to an improvement in our system of cookery. One great cause of many of the spoilt dishes and badly-cooked meats which are brought to our tables, arises, we think, and most will agree with us, from a non-acquaintance with ”common, every-day things.”

Entertaining this view, we intend to preface the chapters of this work with a simple scientific _resume_ of all those causes and circ.u.mstances which relate to the food we have to prepare, and the theory and chemistry of the various culinary operations. Accordingly, this is the proper place to treat of the quality of the flesh of animals, and describe some of the circ.u.mstances which influence it for good or bad.

We will, therefore, commence with the circ.u.mstance of _age_, and examine how far this affects the quality of meat.

92. DURING THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE BIRTH AND MATURITY OF ANIMALS, their flesh undergoes very considerable changes. For instance, when the animal is young, the fluids which the tissues of the muscles contain, possess a large proportion of what is called _alb.u.men_. This alb.u.men, which is also the chief component of the white of eggs, possesses the peculiarity of coagulating or hardening at a certain temperature, like the white of a boiled egg, into a soft, white fluid, no longer soluble, or capable of being dissolved in water. As animals grow older, this peculiar animal matter gradually decreases, in proportion to the other const.i.tuents of the juice of the flesh. Thus, the reason why veal, lamb, and young pork are _white, and without gravy_ when cooked, is, that the large quant.i.ty of alb.u.men they contain hardens, or becomes coagulated. On the other hand, the reason why beef and mutton are _brown, and have gravy_, is, that the proportion of alb.u.men they contain, is small, in comparison with their greater quant.i.ty of fluid which is soluble, and not coagulable.

93. THE QUALITY OF THE FLESH OF AN ANIMAL is considerably influenced by the nature of the _food on which it has been fed_; for the food supplies the material which produces the flesh. If the food be not suitable and good, the meat cannot be good either; just as the paper on which these words are printed, could not be good, if the rags from which it is made, were not of a fine quality. To the experienced in this matter, it is well known that the flesh of animals fed on farinaceous produce, such as corn, pulse, &c., is firm, well-flavoured, and also economical in the cooking; that the flesh of those fed on succulent and pulpy substances, such as roots, possesses these qualities in a somewhat less degree; whilst the flesh of those whose food contains fixed oil, as linseed, is greasy, high coloured, and gross in the fat, and if the food has been used in large quant.i.ties, possessed of a rank flavour.

94. IT IS INDISPENSABLE TO THE GOOD QUALITY OF MEAT, that the animal should be _perfectly healthy_ at the time of its slaughter. However slight the disease in an animal may be, inferiority in the quality of its flesh, as food, is certain to be produced. In most cases, indeed, as the flesh of diseased animals has a tendency to very rapid putrefaction, it becomes not only unwholesome, but absolutely poisonous, on account of the absorption of the _virus_ of the unsound meat into the systems of those who partake of it. The external indications of good and bad meat will be described under its own particular head, but we may here premise that the layer of all wholesome meat, when freshly killed, adheres firmly to the bone.