[PART II
RECIPES]
BEEF-JUICE, BEEF-TEA, AND BROTHS
Beef-Juice. The clear juice of beef, slightly diluted with water, is always excellent, being especially useful for its strong flavors. It is like concentrated beef-tea, and is often valuable in pleasantly exciting the action of the mouth and stomach after a long illness in which milk has been the chief article of diet.
Beef-juice is best made by broiling the beef. Prepared in this way, the flavor is superior, and it is a quick and easy method; but when a proper broiling fire cannot be had, then it may be made in a glass jar like beef-tea, except without the water.
Beef-Tea is valuable for its stimulating properties and for the warmth that it gives; it is also somewhat nutritious, containing as it does the albuminous juices of the meat, some salts, and the very important flavors. Beef-tea should be prepared in such a manner that the juices are held in solution in the water, not coagulated, to secure which the cooking temperature should never be allowed to exceed that of 160° Fahr.
Broths. Beef, mutton, and chicken broths are the most desirable forms of meat drinks for convalescents and those no longer dangerously ill. By slow cooking at a low temperature at first (the temperature should not exceed 150° Fahr. for the first hour), the extractives and albuminous juices are drawn out; then, by boiling, the gelatin of the bones, flesh, and tissues is dissolved. The nutritive qualities of these broths may be much increased by the addition of bread, rice, tapioca, barley, and sago, cooked during the whole time so that they may be completely dissolved in the liquid.