EXPERIMENTS AND RECIPES
Experiment A.
Chop finely a small piece of meat, squeeze out the juice with a lemon squeezer and heat this juice in a saucepan. Observe the coagulation that takes place.
Experiment B.
(1) Apparatus.—If possible, 2 glass beakers, 1 square wire net. If these are not available, use an ordinary tumbler and a small saucepan.
(2) Method.—a. Put a small piece of meat in a beaker with cold water, and allow it to stand.
b. Bring water to the boiling point in the beaker on the net over the gas flame. Throw in a small piece of meat.
Compare the appearance of the two pieces of meat and the water in the two beakers.
1. Broiled steak.
(1) Wipe steak with a damp cloth. If a wood or coal stove is used, have a bed of glowing coals ready. If gas is used, have the gas broiler thoroughly heated. Grease the bars of the broiler. Place steak in the broiler and sear meat first on one side, then on the other. Continue to turn the broiler and cook the meat until it is brown and done according to taste. Steak an inch thick will take about ten minutes to be cooked to a medium degree. Chops are broiled in the same way.
(2) Steak and chops may also be broiled in the pan. An iron frying pan is the best utensil. Heat the pan, and brush it over with a small piece of fat cut from the steak or the chops. The purpose of this is merely to keep the meat from sticking to the pan. The principle of procedure is the same as with (1). The steak or chops must be frequently turned, using a knife and a fork, being careful not to prick the meat with the fork. The length of time is slightly longer than for (1). This method must not be confused with the frying of steak in a pan with a large amount of fat. By this method the steak is not fried, and it is often a convenient substitute for (1).
2. Roast of beef.
Wipe roast with a damp cloth. Sprinkle with salt and dredge with flour. Place in a roasting pan, fat side up if it is a standing roast. Put the roast in a very hot oven and after fifteen minutes reduce the heat. Baste roast two or three times with the fat that tries out during cooking. The usual allowance of time for a medium rare roast is fifteen minutes for every pound of meat.
Roast beef gravy.—After the roast has been taken from the
pan, pour out all but 11⁄2 tablespoonfuls of the melted fat. Stir in 1 heaping tablespoonful of flour and brown very slightly. Add one cup of cold water and stir constantly until thickened. Add 1⁄2 teaspoonful salt. Strain.
3. Bouillon.
| Shin of beef | 6 pounds |
| Cold water | 3 quarts |
| Peppercorns | 1⁄2 teaspoonful |
| Cloves | 6 |
| Bay leaf | 1⁄2 |
| Thyme | 3 sprigs |
| Marjoram | 1 sprig |
| Parsley | 2 sprigs |
| Carrot Turnip Onion | 1⁄2 cup each cut in dice |
| Celery Salt | 1 tablespoonful |
Wipe beef and cut the lean meat in inch cubes. Brown one third of the meat in fat cut from meat or marrow from a marrow bone. Put remaining two thirds with bone and fat in soup kettle, add water and let stand for thirty minutes. Place on back of range, add browned meat, and heat gradually to the boiling point. Cover and cook slowly six hours, keeping below the boiling point during cooking. Add the vegetables and seasonings, cook one and one half hours, strain and cool as quickly as possible. This is called soup stock.
To clarify bouillon.—When stock is cold, remove fat which has hardened on top and put quantity to be cleared into a stew pan. Allow white and shell of one egg to each quart of stock. Put over fire and stir constantly until boiling point is reached. Boil two minutes. Set back on stove and let simmer twenty minutes. Remove scum and strain through double thickness of cheesecloth.
4. General directions for meat soups.
Soup making is an art that is well worth cultivating. The expert soup maker will obtain delicious flavors by adding bits of many kinds of left overs—almost anything that is found in the refrigerator in the way of fruit, vegetables, and pieces of meat. With the coming of the gas stove, many people have given up soup making. These various left overs add much to the flavor of the soup and can be used in a thickened soup which is like the bouillon strained and thickened. The thickening may be flour, arrowroot, cold cereal, sago, tapioca, or rice. Spaghetti, vermicelli,
and fancy forms of paste are sometimes served. Vegetables may be cut into dice or fancy shapes and served in the clear soup. A great variety is possible in flavoring and serving soup if one will take the trouble to make it an art.
Soup meat may be served in a soup of the old-fashioned kind, thickened and containing vegetables. In such a soup some fat is left, and the total result is a dish that makes a meal when served with bread.
When the soup is a clear soup, the meat that is left may be used for made over dishes; although some practical housekeepers think that it costs almost as much to make it palatable as to buy fresh meat. Try it in an escalloped dish with plenty of tomato, onion, and some dried herbs for additional flavor.
5. Beef stew with dumplings.
| Lean meat | 3 | pounds |
| Potatoes | 4 | cups, cut in 1⁄4 inch slices |
| Turnip Carrot | 2⁄3 | cup each, cut in half inch cubes |
| Onion | 1⁄2 | small one, cut in thin slices |
| Flour Salt Pepper | 1⁄4 | cup |
Wipe meat, cut in 11⁄2 inch cubes, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Cut some of the fat in small pieces and try out in frying pan. Add meat and stir constantly, that the surface may be quickly seared. When well browned, put in kettle, and rinse frying pan with boiling water, that none of the flavor may be lost. Cover with boiling water and boil five minutes, then cook below the boiling point until meat is tender (about 3 hours). Add vegetables except potatoes and seasoning the last hour of cooking. Parboil potatoes five minutes and add to stew 15 minutes before taking from fire.
Thicken stew with 1⁄4 cup flour mixed with enough cold water to pour easily. Pour in deep hot platter and surround with dumplings.
Teacher’s Note.—Broiled steak would be suitable for group work, using small steaks (Delmonico cut). A small roast may be prepared by a group and roasted after class. This meat and that left from the steak should be used in a subsequent class for a lesson on left over meat. Broiled or pan-broiled chops may be prepared individually.
6. Dumplings.
| Flour | 2 | cups |
| Baking powder | 4 | teaspoonfuls |
| Salt | 1⁄2 | teaspoonful |
| Butter | 2 | teaspoonfuls |
| Milk | 7⁄8 | cup |
Mix and sift dry ingredients. Work in butter with a knife, add milk gradually. Remove enough liquid from stew so that when dumplings are dropped in they will rest on top of meat. Drop by spoonfuls and let cook about twenty minutes.
The stew should be thickened before dumplings are dropped in.
7. Uses of left over meat.
(1) Rissoles.—Run meat together with small piece of onion through a chopper. Add salt, pepper, a little cold cereal, or bread crumbs, and beaten egg, allowing one egg to about a pound of meat. Shape into flat round cakes, roll in flour and sauté in butter until well browned. These may be served with tomato sauce.
Tomato Sauce.
| Onion | 1 | teaspoonful chopped |
| Salt | 1⁄4 | teaspoonful |
| Pepper | ||
| Flour | 2 | tablespoonfuls |
| Butter | 2 | tablespoonfuls |
| Sugar | 1 | teaspoonful |
| Cloves | 3 | |
| Tomatoes | 2 | cups |
Brown the onion in butter and stir in the flour. When it has bubbled up, add the tomatoes and seasonings. Stir constantly until it thickens. Strain into a hot bowl.
Teacher’s Note.—One sixth of these recipes would be as small an amount as it would be practicable to use.
(2) Croquettes.
| Cold meat or chicken | 2 | cups |
| Salt | 1⁄2 | teaspoonful |
| Pepper | 1⁄8 | teaspoonful |
| Cayenne | Few | grains |
| Onion juice | Few | drops |
| White sauce | 1 | cup, thick, hot |
| Beaten egg | ||
| Dried bread crumbs |
Mix ingredients in order given and let mixture cool. Shape into croquettes, roll in crumbs, beaten egg and crumbs again, place in a frying basket and fry in deep fat to a golden brown.
(3) Escalloped meat
| Cold meat | ||
| Bread crumbs, soft | 2 | cups |
| Onion | 1 | slice, chopped fine |
| Salt | 1⁄2 | teaspoonful |
| Mixed poultry seasoning | 1 | tablespoonful |
A little chopped celery is desirable
This is a simple method of serving left over meat that needs no specific recipe. Layers of bread crumbs are alternated with layers of meat which may be chopped or cut into small pieces. Liquid may be used like tomato or tomato juice, or soup that is left over, or plain water. The flavor may be varied by the use of the different materials that are suitable to meat. Layers of mashed potato may be used instead of bread.
Poultry
In selecting poultry see that the flesh is firm, that there is a good amount of fat underneath the skin, and that the skin is whole and a good yellow. Notice the odor of the fowl particularly. The skin of cold-storage poultry has not such a good color and is sometimes broken. Often the flesh is shrunken, and if the cold storage has been too long continued the odor is unpleasant. Refrigeration is allowable for a period. Another way to judge cold-storage poultry is by
the price. Well-fed poultry freshly killed brings a high market price and a bargain quite often proves to be poultry too long in cold storage. Good quality poultry is at present a high-priced food.
To prepare poultry for cooking, the “dressing” of the chicken is often done now at the market. If it is necessary to do this at home, make an incision with a sharp knife just inside of one of the legs, in the groin. Insert the hand and remove all the entrails. The skin must be loosened at the neck and the crop removed. In any case, wash the chicken thoroughly inside and out, even holding the cavity under running water. If there is hair remaining on the chicken, singe this off over burning paper or over a gas flame.
The composition is essentially the same as that of meat. The white of chicken, fowls, and turkeys is thought to be more digestible than the dark meat.