Part 4 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII.

ROASTING.

IN spite of Brillat-Savarin's maxim that one may become a cook, but must be born a _rotisseur_, I am inclined to think one may also, by remembering one or two things, become a very good ”roaster” (to translate the untranslatable), especially in our day, when the oven has taken the place of the spit, although a great deal of meat is spoiled in roasting; a loin of lamb or piece of beef, that comes to the table so pale that you can't tell whether it has been boiled or merely wilted in the oven, is an aggravation so familiar, that a rich brown, well-roasted joint is generally a surprise. Perhaps the cook will tell you she has had the ”hottest kind of an oven;” but then she has probably also had a well of water underneath it, the vapor from which, arising all the time, has effectually soddened the meat, and checked the browning. The surface of roast meat should be covered with a rich glaze, scientifically called ”osma-zone.” That the meat may be thus glazed, it should always go into a _hot_ oven, so that, as the gravy exudes, it may congeal on the outside, thus sealing up the pores. The general plan, however, is to put meat into a warm oven an hour or two earlier than it should go, with a quant.i.ty of water and flour underneath it. The result in hot weather I have known to be very disagreeable, the tepid oven having, in fact, given a stale taste to the joint before it began to cook, and it at all times results in flavorless, tough meat. There is no time saved, either, in putting the meat in while the oven is yet cool. Heat up the oven till it is quite brisk, then put the meat in a pan, in which, if it is fat, you require _no water_; if very lean, you may put half a teacup, just enough to prevent the pan burning; you may rub a little flour over the joint or not, as you please, but never more than the surface moisture absorbs; have no clinging particles of flour upon the joint, neither put salt nor pepper upon the meat before it goes into the oven; salt draws out the gravy, which it is your object to keep in, and the flavor of pepper is entirely changed by the parching it undergoes when on the surface of the meat, the odor of scorched pepper, while cooking, being very offensive to refined nostrils. This does not occur when pepper is not on the surface; for the _inside_ of birds, in stuffing, and in meat pies it is indispensable, and the flavor undergoes no change. This remark on pepper applies also to broiling and frying. Always pepper _after_ the article is cooked, and both for appearance and delicacy of flavor white pepper should always be used in preference to black.

Meat, while in the oven, should be carefully turned about so that it may brown equally, and when it has been in half the time you intend to give it, or when the upper surface is well browned, turn it over. When it comes out of the oven put it on a hot dish, then carefully pour off the fat by holding the corner of the meat pan over your dripping-pan, and very gently allowing the fat to run off; do not shake it; when you see the thick brown sediment beginning to run too, check it; if there is still much fat on the surface, take it off with a spoon; then pour into the pan a little boiling water and salt, in quant.i.ty according to the quant.i.ty of sediment or glaze in the pan, and with a spoon rub off every speck of the dried gravy on the bottom and sides of the pan. Add no flour, the gravy must be thick enough with its own richness. If you have added too much water, so that it looks poor, you may always boil it down by setting the pan on the stove for a few minutes; but it is better to put very little water at first, and add as the richness of the gravy allows. Now you have a rich brown gravy, instead of the thick whitey-brown broth so often served with roast meat. Every drop of this gravy and that from the dish should be carefully saved if left over.

Save all dripping, except from mutton or meat with which onions are cooked, for purposes which I shall indicate in another place.

Veal and pork require to be very thoroughly cooked. For them, therefore, the oven must not be too hot, neither must it be lukewarm, a good even heat is best; if likely to get too brown before it is thoroughly cooked, open the oven door.

CHAPTER IX.

BOILING.

BOILING is one of the things about which cooks are most careless; theoretically they almost always know meat should be slowly boiled, but their idea of ”slow” is ruled by the fire; they never attempt to rule that. There is a good rule given by Gouffe as to what slow boiling actually is: the surface of the pot should only show signs of ebullition at one side, just an occasional bubble. _Simmering_ is a still slower process, and in this the pot should have only a sizzling round one part of the edge. All fresh meat should boil _slowly_; ham or corn beef should barely simmer. Yet they must not go off the boil at all, which would spoil fresh meat entirely; steeping in water gives a flat, insipid taste.

All vegetables except potatoes, asparagus, peas, and cauliflower should boil as fast as possible; these four only moderately. Most vegetables are boiled far too long. Cabbage is as delicate as cauliflower in the summer and fall if boiled in plenty of water, to which a salt spoonful of soda has been added, _as fast as possible_ for twenty minutes or half an hour, then drained and dressed. In winter it should be cut in six or eight pieces, boiled _fast_, in plenty of water, for half an hour, _no longer_. Always give it plenty of room, let the water boil rapidly when you put it in the pot, which set on the hottest part of the fire to come to that point again, and you will have no more strong, rank, yellow stuff on your table, no bad odor in your house. Peas require no more than twenty minutes' boiling if young; asparagus the same; the latter should always be boiled in a saucepan deep enough to let it stand up in the water when tied up in bunches, for this saves the heads. Potatoes should be poured off the minute they are done, and allowed to stand at the back of the stove with a clean cloth folded over them. They are the only vegetable that should be put into _cold_ water. When new, boiling water is proper. When quite ripe they are more floury if put in cold water.

SOUPS.--As I have before said, I do not pretend to give many recipes, only to tell you how to succeed with the recipes given in other books. I shall, therefore, only give one recipe which I know is a novelty and one for the foundation of all soups. In one sense I have done the latter already. The stock for glaze is an excellent soup before it is reduced; but I will also give Jules Gouffe's method of making _pot-au-feu_, it being a most beautifully clear soup.

It often happens, however, that you have sufficient stock from bones, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of meat, and odds and ends of gravies, which may always be turned to account; but the stock from such a source, although excellent, will not always be clear; therefore, you must proceed with it in the following manner, unless you wish to use it for thick soup:

Make your stock boiling hot and skim well; then have ready the whites of three eggs (I am supposing you have three quarts of stock--one egg to a quart), to which add half a pint of cold water; whisk well together; then add half a pint of the boiling stock gradually, still whisking the eggs; then stir the boiling stock rapidly, pouring in the whites of eggs, etc.; as you do it, stir quickly till nearly boiling again, then take it from the fire, let it remain till the whites of eggs separate; then strain through a clean, fine cloth into a basin. This rule once learned will clear every kind of soup or jelly.

There are many people who are good cooks, yet fail in clear soup, which is with them semi-opaque, while it should be like sherry. The cause of this opacity is generally quick boiling while the meat is in. This gives it a milky appearance. After the stock is once made and clear, quick boiling will do no harm, but of course wastes the soup, unless resorted to for the purpose of making it stronger. A word here about coloring soup: Most persons resort to burnt sugar, and, very carefully used, it is not at all a bad makes.h.i.+ft. But how often have we a rich-looking soup put before us, the vermicelli appearing to repose under a lake of strong russet _bouillon_, but which, on tasting, we find suggestive of nothing but burnt sugar and salt, every bit of flavor destroyed by the acrid coloring. Sometimes stock made by the recipe for _pot-au-feu_ (to follow) requires no color; this depends on the beef; but usually all soup is more appetizing in appearance for a little browning, and for this purpose I always use burnt onions in preference to anything else.

If you have none in store when the soup is put on, put a small onion in the oven (or on the back of the stove; should you be baking anything the odor would taint); turn it often till it gets quite black, but not _charred_. Then put it to the soup; it adds a fine flavor as well as color, and you need not fear overdoing it.

Soup that is to be reduced must be very lightly salted; for this reason salt is left out altogether for glaze, as the reduction causes the water only to evaporate, the salt remains.

GOUFFe'S POT-AU-FEU.--Four pounds of lean beef, six quarts of water, six ounces of carrot, six of turnip, six of onion, half an ounce of celery, one clove, salt.

Put the meat on in cold water, and just before it comes to the boil skim it, and throw in a winegla.s.s of cold water, skim again, and, when it is ”on the boil,” again throw in another winegla.s.s of cold water; do this two or three times. The object of adding the cold water is to keep it just off the boil until all the sc.u.m has risen, as the boiling point is when it comes to the surface, yet once having boiled, the sc.u.m is broken up, and the soup is never so clear.

The meat must simmer slowly, _not boil_, for three hours before the vegetables are added, then for a couple of hours more.

It is necessary to be very exact in the proportions of vegetables; but, of course, after having weighed them for soups once or twice, you will get to know about the size of a carrot, turnip, etc., that will weigh six ounces. The exact weight is given until the eye is accustomed to it.

This soup strained, and boiled down to one half, becomes _consomme_.

CELERY CREAM is a most delicious and little-known white soup, and all lovers of good things will thank me for introducing it.

Have some nice veal stock, or the water in which chickens have been boiled, reduced till it is rich enough, will do, or some very rich mutton broth, but either of the former are preferable; then put on a half cup of rice in a pint of rich milk, and grate into it the white part and root of two heads of celery. Let the rice milk cook very slowly at the back of the stove, adding more milk before it gets at all stiff; when tender enough to mash through a coa.r.s.e sieve or fine colander add it to the stock, which must have been strained and be quite free from sediment, season with salt and a little _white_ pepper or cayenne, boil all together gently a few minutes. It should look like rich cream, and be strongly flavored with celery. Of course the quant.i.ty of rice, milk, and celery must depend on the quant.i.ty of stock you have.

I have given the proportion for one quart, which, with the milk, etc., added, would make about three pints of soup.