Roasting is the most simple and direct application of heat in the preparation of food. The process is, for the most part, confined to animal substances, though several fruits, such as apples, chesnuts, and some roots, are in this manner directly subjected to fire.
But in dressing animal food, butcher’s meat, venison, fowl, and fish, roasting is one of the most usual processes, and it is, we believe, the best for rendering food nutritive and wholesome. The chemical changes also which roasting induces, are sufficiently slight, as a careful analysis will procure from meat, properly roasted, nearly all the elements which are to be found in it in the raw state. Slight as the change is however in a chemical, it is considerable in a culinary, point of view. The texture of the meat is more relaxed and consequently it is more tender; it is also more sapid and high flavoured. It is absolutely essential that the meat intended for roasting, has been kept long enough for the fibres to become flaccid, without which precaution the best meat does not become tender. If the meat be frozen, it should be thawed, by putting it into cold water, before it is put on the spit.
The process of roasting requires some care to conduct it properly. The meat should be gradually turned before the fire, in order to effect its uniform exposure to the rays of heat. A covering of paper prevents the fat from taking fire, and frequently basting the meat with gravy or melted fat, prevents it from being scorched or becoming dry, bitter, and unpalatable. It is necessary to be very careful in placing the meat to be roasted at a proper distance from the fire. If it is put too near, the surface will be scorched and burnt to a cinder, while the inner portion will be quite raw; and, if it be too distant, it will never have either the tenderness or the flavour it would have had by proper care. At first, it should be placed at some distance, and afterwards be gradually brought nearer the fire, to give the heat time to penetrate the whole piece equally; and, the larger the joint is, the more gradually should this be done. Poultry, in particular, should be heated very gradually.
When the joint is of an unequal thickness, the spit must be placed slanting, so that the thinnest part is further removed from the fire.
The less the spit is made to pass through the prime part of the meat, the better. Thus, in a shoulder of mutton, the spit is made to enter close to the shank-bone, and passed along the blade-bone of the joint.
When the meat is nearly sufficiently roasted, it is dusted over with a coating of flour; this, uniting with the fat and other juices exuded on the surface, covers the joint with a brown crust, glazed and frothy, which gives to the eye a prelude of the palatable substance it encrusts.
The process, as just described, is very similar, whatever may be the sort of meat roasted, whether joints, and the several species of fowl, or game. Fish is not usually dressed in this way, though the larger sorts are sometimes roasted. Those who relish eels and pike prefer them roasted to any other mode of dressing them.
It is a general practice to move the spit back when the meat is half done, in order to clear the bottom part of the grate, and to give the fire a good stirring, that it may burn bright during the remainder of the process. The meat is deemed sufficiently roasted when the steam puffs out of the joint in jets towards the fire.
To facilitate the process of roasting, a metal screen, consisting of a shallow concave reflector, is placed behind the meat, in order to reflect the rays of heat of the fire back again upon the meat. This greatly hastens the process. The screen is usually made of wood, lined with tin. It should be kept bright, otherwise, it will not reflect the rays of heat.