THE PROCESSES OF COOKERY.
Much useful information is to be derived from Prof. Mattieu Williams’s Cantor Lectures on the Scientific Basis of Cookery, from which some of the following paragraphs are borrowed.
Roasting.—Williams shows that “in roasting a joint before the fire without any screen, the radiant heat from the coal is only used; the meat is heated only on one side, that next to the fire, and, as it turns round, is radiating its heat away from the other side to the wall, &c., of the kitchen. If a meat screen of polished metal is placed behind the meat, the rays of heat not intercepted by the meat itself are received upon the screen, and reflected back towards the meat, and thus both sides are heated.”
There is an old rule well known all over the world of cookery, and that is, “white meats well done, black meats underdone;” this applies to all meats of the four as well as of the two-legged sort, but then it means properly well done, and properly underdone. To attain this end the first thing which demands attention is the making up of the fire. It should be regulated according to the size and the nature of the article which is to be roasted, and should be so managed as to last all-aglow the whole length of time which the roasting will take. In the case of joints of meat the following are the main points to be attended to. The joint should be trimmed neatly; cut off the end or flaps of a sirloin of beef (this makes a very good stew for the kitchen dinner, or maybe used to make stock with greater advantage than roasting it with the joint in the point of view both of economy and of taste), a piece of buttered paper should be tied on with string over the fat, and not removed until just before the joint is done. If it can possibly be avoided do not use skewers to fix up the joints, but use string instead; and when practicable perpendicular roasting is preferable to horizontal, as not requiring the use of the spit. Place the meat at first 18 in. from the fire, or even farther off if it be a large joint and the fire greater in proportion. When the meat is well warmed, gradually bring it nearer, and from that time never cease basting the joint at regular intervals, but this you must not overdo. The time that meat takes to roast is usually set down at 15-20 minutes for every lb. the joint weighs, but this is a very broad rule, so many circumstances tending to modify it. The quality of the meat, the age of it, whether it be fresh killed or not, the season of the year, the nature of the fire, and the position of it as regards currents of air in the kitchen, must all be taken into consideration. One thing only is certain, and that is, that when the joint begins to smoke it is nearly if not quite done, and at this stage 2-3 minutes more or less at the fire will make or mar the success of the joint as a piece of artistic roasting. (The G. C.)
In Ovens.—“The oven is an apparatus for cooking by radiation. In this case the meat or other object of cookery receives radiant heat from the heated walls of the oven. If this chamber, with radiant walls, be so arranged that the heat shall be radiated equally on all sides, and is capable of regulation, it becomes a roaster, which theoretically does its work more perfectly than an open fire, even when aided by a screen.” (Williams.)
Williams has “not the slightest hesitation in affirming that moderate-sized joints properly roasted in a closed chamber, are far better than similar joints cooked with the utmost skill in front of a fire. The smaller the joint, the greater the advantage of the closed chamber.”
Roasting-ovens are now attached to all the best forms of kitcheners.
On one point in the philosophy of roasting, Williams differs from Rumford. He thinks “it desirable—and has tested this theory experimentally—to begin at a temperature above that which is to be maintained throughout the roasting. The object of this is to produce a crust on the surface of the meat that shall partially seal it, and keep in the juices as much as possible. Then the temperature may fall to the average, which should be well kept up, and rather raised towards the last. This comes about automatically in the ordinary course of cooking with a roasting-oven.”
He adds that “sealing is more demanded by a joint of beef than by one of mutton of given size, because in the beef there is more of cut surface, exposing the ends of the fibres of the meat. In a leg of mutton, for example, this exposure is only at one end, the rest is partially protected by the skin of the leg.”
Basting.—“The rationale of basting appears to be that it assists in the sealing, and diminishes the evaporation of the juices of the meat, the chief difference between well-roasted and ill-roasted meat depending upon this.” In roasting, “the meat is stewed in its own juices. The flavour depends on this: no water being used, these juices are not diluted—they are, on the contrary, more or less concentrated by evaporation; but if this evaporation be carried too far, a drying-up occurs, and this desiccation is accompanied with toughness and indigestibility, as well as sacrifice of flavour. The smaller the joint, the greater the risk of such desiccation.”
Grilling.—“This principle brings us at once to grilling, which is another kind of roasting, i.e. of cooking by radiation. A beef steak or mutton chop is not roasted by turning it round and round in front of the fire, because so large a surface is exposed in proportion to the mass, and such treatment would evaporate from that large surface too much of the juices. Rapidity is the primary condition of success in grilling. When a large and specially-constructed grill, placed over a large coke or charcoal fire, is available, the heat radiated on the exposed surface of the meat rapidly browns or carbonises the exposed surface, and partially seals its pores.”
Boiling.—“When water is heated in a glass vessel over a flame where the action may be watched, bubbles are first seen growing on the sides of the glass, gradually detaching themselves, and rising to the surface. These are merely bubbles of air that was dissolved in the water. After this, other and larger bubbles form on the bottom just above the flame. At first they are flat, and continually collapsing. Presently they become hemispherical, but still they collapse; then they become more and more nearly spherical, and afterwards quite spherical; afterwards they detach themselves, and start upwards, but perish in the attempt, by collapsing somewhere on the way. At last they reach the surface, and break there, ejecting themselves as steam into the air. Now the water boils, and a thermometer dipped into it registers 212° F. After this, it matters not whether the boiling is very violent or only the gentlest simmering, no further rise of the thermometer is perceptible, showing that the simmering temperature and the ‘galloping’ temperature are the same.”
“The actual cooking temperature for animal food is considerably below the boiling point of water, and is regulated by the coagulation of albumen, which commences at rather below 160° F., i.e. more than 50° below the boiling point of water.”
To “apply this practically to the boiling of an egg for breakfast. By the ordinary method of the 3 minutes’ immersion in continually boiling water, the white becomes hard and indigestible before the yolk is fairly warmed, and ½ minute too much, or ½ minute too little, will nearly ruin the operation.”
“The proper mode is to place the egg in boiling water, and then remove the saucepan from the fire altogether, and leave the egg in the water from 10 minutes to ¼ hour. About ½ pint for 1 egg, ¾ pint for 2 eggs, or 1 pint for 4 eggs, is the quantity demanded if the saucepan is well covered.”
Stewing.—“The prevailing idea in England is that stewed meat only differs from boiled meat by being kept in the water for a longer time—that stewing is simply protracted boiling. I venture, nevertheless, to declare the total fallacy of this, and to assert that, so far as flesh food is concerned, boiling and stewing are diametrically opposite, as regards the special objects to be attained. In boiling a joint—say, a leg of mutton—the best efforts of the cook should be directed to retaining the juices within the meat, and allowing the smallest possible quantity to come out into the water. In stewing, the business is to get as much as possible out of the meat, to separate the juices from the meat and convey them to the water. This is the case, whether the French practice of serving the liquid potage or bouillon as a separate dish, and the stewed meat or bouilli as another, or the English and Irish fashion of serving the stewed meat in its own juices or gravy, as in the case of stewed steak, Irish stew, &c.
“The poor French peasant does more with 1 lb. of meat, in the way of stewing, than the English cook with three or four. The little bit of meat, and the large supply of vegetables are placed in a pot, and this in another vessel containing water—the bain-marie or water bath. This stands on the embers of a poor little wood fire, and is left there till dinner-time, under conditions that render boiling impossible, and demand little or no further attention from the cook; consequently, the meat, when removed, has parted with its juices to the potage, but is not curled up by the contraction of the hardened albumen, nor reduced to stringy fibres. It is tender, eatable, and enjoyable, that is, when the proper supply of saline juices of the meat plus the saline juices of the vegetables, have been taken into the system.
“Whether the potage and the meat should thus be separated, or whether they should be stewed together, as in an Irish stew, &c., is merely a matter of taste and custom; but that a stew should never be boiled, nor placed in a position on the fire where boiling or ‘simmering’ is possible, should be regarded as a primary axiom in cooking where stewing is concerned.”
Braising.—This takes its name from the French word braise, the red embers of a wood fire being so called. There are proper pans sold for this kind of cooking, called braising-pans; they are rather shallower than ordinary stewpans, and they have the edges of the lid turned up to hold live coals, it being necessary to have heat from above as well as below in braising. It is also necessary as much as possible to exclude the air. Should there be no braising-pan in the house it is possible to do it, but less well, in an ordinary stewpan, which will have to be put into the oven.
Frying.—“Frying ranks with boiling and stewing, rather than with grilling. When properly conducted, it is one of the processes in which the heat is communicated by convection, the medium being hot fat instead of the hot water used in the so-called, and mis-called ‘boiling’ of meat. I say ‘when properly conducted,’ because it is too often very improperly conducted in domestic kitchens. This is the case whenever fish, cutlets, &c., are fried on a merely greased plate of metal, such as a common frying-pan. Pancakes or omelettes may be thus fried, but no kind of fish or meat. These should be immersed in a bath of fat sufficiently deep to cover them completely. To those who have not reasoned out the subject, such complete immersion in so large a quantity of fat may appear likely to produce a very greasy result. The contrary is the case.
“Let us take, as an example, the frying of a sole. On immersing this in a bath of fat raised to a temperature above that of boiling water, a violent hissing and crackling noise (‘frizzling’) is heard. This is caused by a series of small explosions due to the sudden conversion of water into steam. The water was originally on the surface and between and within the fibres of the flesh of the sole. The continual expansion of this water into vapour, and its outbursting, prevent the fat from penetrating the fish, so long as the temperature is maintained above 212° F., and thus the substance of the sole is cooked by the steam of its own juices, and its outside is browned by the superheated fat.
“Now, let us suppose that a merely greased plate, like the bottom of a frying-pan, is used. Only one side of the sole is cooked at first—the side in contact with the pan—therefore it must be turned to cook the other side. When thus turned, the side first cooked with its adhering fat is cooling; its steam is condensing between its fibres, and the fat is gradually entering to supply the place of steam, while the other side is cooking. Thus it is more greasy than if rapidly withdrawn from the bath of hot fat, and then allowed to drain before the steam commences to condense. A stew-pan, or any other suitable kind of kettle, may be used, if provided with a wire basket for lifting; or a frying-pan of the ordinary kind, if deep enough.”
To fry rissoles, or anything which requires to be fried all over at one time, a wire basket must be used, a stewpan large enough round to receive the basket, and deep enough to hold a sufficient quantity of melted fat to completely cover whatever is to be fried. Place the rissoles in the basket, set the stewpan containing the fat on the fire, and when the fat is boiling, at once plunge the basket into it and hold it there until they are sufficiently cooked, which will be when they have attained a delicate golden colour. The greatest care will be necessary in watching for the moment of boiling, this will be when the fat ceases to bubble and splutter; it will then become perfectly silent, and almost immediately a light blue steam will rise from it, which is the sign of boiling, the frying must then instantly commence, for it will soon after begin to smoke, and if put into the fat while in this condition the rissoles would be quite spoilt, both in colour and flavour. For cutlets, soles, or anything flat, you may use a cutlet-pan or frying-pan and fry one side at a time. Lard, butter, and sweet oil are all used, and for very delicate frying they are necessary. Whitebait must be done in oil, omelettes in butter, as also cutlets if you wish them to be particularly nice; but for most things and for all ordinary occasions there is nothing better than good well-clarified dripping.
Kitchen odours.—All “greens,” to use a familiar expression, especially cabbage, as we know, have a horrible tendency to create noxious vapours; whilst onions, it need not be said, permeate the remotest recesses of a building, not only while they are cooking, but while they are being prepared for the saucepan or the frying-pan. To thoroughly deodorise the boiling cabbage or the frying onion is next door to impossible, but the effluvium may be mitigated. A large piece of bread is sometimes put upon the knife’s point whilst onions are being peeled, in order to prevent the tearful effect which the pungent esculent produces on the eyes; and we have lately been told in a popular cookery book that the offensive results of cabbage boiling may be well nigh got rid of, by wrapping up in a piece of clean white linen rag a large lump of bread, and putting it in the saucepanful of water in which the cabbage is being cooked. The same plan, no doubt, would be equally effective in the case of broccoli, which, if possible, is a greater offender than cabbage in emitting offensive fumes. The obnoxious reek is mitigated, we are told, by some cooks, by boiling broccoli in two waters—parboiling them to begin with; then taking them out of the saucepan, straining them, allowing cold water to run over them for a few minutes, and placing them in a fresh pot of boiling water. What applies here may be extended, no doubt, with beneficial results to most greenery, not forgetting the cauliflower—another marked offender in the way of creating bad odour. It is, however, very frequently the careless manner in which the water used in the boiling of vegetables is thrown away, which produces the worst stench of which the kitchen is guilty. Nothing is so detestable as this smell of “green water,” and the cook who allows it to get the upper hand of her is either very careless or very incompetent. If the water be thrown recklessly down the sink, and no means are adopted to deodorise it, hours will elapse ere the fumes can be dissipated, during which they will have found their way all over the house. Where the drainage and such like appliances are in perfect order (or, indeed, where they are not more particularly), it should be held as an essential part of the scullery-maid’s duty to pour gallons of fresh water, both boiling and cold, down the sink immediately after the cabbage water. If this be done freely, and a liberal sprinkling of Sanitas Powder or other inoffensive deodoriser be then distributed about the sink or drain trap, we need not be troubled, as we constantly are, by bad smells when dinner is over.