Baking.
We do not much approve of baking butcher’s-meat, as a substitute for roasting it, though it cannot be denied that some articles may be baked to answer nearly as well as if roasted; and when a great dinner is to be prepared it may be convenient to send a dish or two to the oven, but over these the cook can have no controul, and must, therefore, depend entirely on the baker. The following are articles that may with most advantage be baked, provided the meat be good and fat, and the baker be very attentive:—A sucking-pig, goose, some joints of beef, leg and shoulder of mutton, leg and loin of pork, fillet of veal, ham, hare, sprats, and other small kinds of fish in pans, or jugs. To poor families, however, the oven affords great convenience as well as a considerable saving of expense and trouble.
Beef loses about one third of its weight by baking.
A SUCKING PIG.
Let it be prepared as for roasting; fasten buttered paper on its tail and ears to prevent their being scorched; and send with it a little butter, tied up in a bit of cloth, to baste its back with, occasionally, which the baker must be requested to do.
Broiling.
For this operation let the fire be brisk and clear. The bars of the gridiron must be bright at top and clean betwixt; wipe the gridiron quite clean with a cloth, make its bars hot, and rub them with nice mutton suet, before you lay on the meat. Set the gridiron slanting over the fire, to prevent the fat dropping into it so as to occasion a smoke, which must be prevented. We shall give as an example in this branch of cookery,
A RUMP STEAK.
The steak should be cut from the middle of the rump, must be about half an inch thick, and have been kept till tender. Broil it quick, and turn it often, with steak-tongs, to keep in the gravy and make it a nice brown; it will be done in fifteen or twenty minutes. Having ready, before the fire, a warm dish, with a table-spoonful of catsup, and a little minced shallot or onion, lay the steak on it, rub it over with a little butter, and garnish the dish with pickles and horse-radish scraped fine.
Frying.