Pickled Tongue.
Treat a pickled tongue the same as a piece of corned beef. It will require five hours’ cooking.
SCIENCE IN ROASTING MEAT.
A roast of meat, be it rare or well done, should be juicy and tender. One should not roast a tough piece of meat; stewing, braising, or boiling is better, because the cooking can be continued for a long time at a low temperature, and this method will make the toughest piece of meat tender. The meat always should be exposed to a high temperature at first, that the surface may become hardened and the juices protected. If the high temperature be continued all the time of cooking, the meat will become hard, dry, and stringy, as far as the heat has penetrated. It will be seen, therefore, that the high temperature should be kept up only long enough to form a thin, hard crust on the meat. From twenty to thirty minutes will suffice for this. The temperature should then be lowered by closing the draughts of the range.
Basting is another important item in roasting. If one use no water in the dripping-pan, and baste only with the fat that drops from the meat into the bottom of the pan, the roast will have a beautiful glossy brown surface when it is done; but it must be remembered that fat can be heated to a much higher point than water, and that basting with this boiling hot fat will help to harden the piece of meat.
If a small quantity of water be kept in the bottom of the dripping-pan, the drippings from the meat, mingling with it, will be kept at a low temperature, so that, if the meat be freely basted with this mixture every fifteen minutes, the surface of the piece of meat will be kept moist, and at a lower temperature than when basted with the hot fat, or not basted at all. By basting with this mixture of drippings and water, the heat is driven from the surface to the centre of the piece of meat, insuring a roast that will be rare from a point about half an inch from the surface to the centre. Bear these facts in mind when roasting meats.
How to Roast Meat in the Oven.
Have a dripping-pan of Russian iron and a meat-rack three or four inches shorter than the pan.
DRIPPING-PAN.