The fundamental principle to be observed in the cooking of meat concerns the retention of the juices, since these contain a large part of the nutrition. The heat develops the flavor, and the moisture, together with the heat, dissolves the connective tissue and makes it tender.
A choice piece of meat may be toughened and made difficult of digestion, or a tough piece may be made tender and easy to digest, by the manner of cooking.
Soups. To make meat soups, the connective tissue, bone and muscle should be put into cold water, brought slowly to the boiling point and allowed to simmer for hours. It must be remembered that the gelatin from this connective tissue does not contain the tissue building elements of the albuminoids. These are retained in what meat may be about the bones of the boiling piece and in the blood.
The albumin of meat is largely in the blood and it is the coagulated blood which forms the scum on soup, if heated above a certain point; the cook should boil the soup slowly, or much of the nutrition is lost in the coagulated blood, or skum.
Roasting. The flavor and juice of the meat is best retained by roasting. If it is put into a hot oven, with a little suet over the top, so as to sear the meat with hot fat, and no water is put in the pan, it will retain the juice and the flavor. Water draws out the extractives.
It is important to remember that the smaller the cut to be roasted, the hotter should be the fire. An intensely hot fire coagulates the exterior and prevents the drying up of the meat juice. After the surface is coagulated and seared it should cook slowly.
Unless the oven is sufficiently hot to sear the surface, the moisture, or juice, will escape into the roasting pan and the connective tissue will be toughened. A roast should be cooked in a covered roaster to retain the moisture.
The roast should be turned as soon as one side is seared and just sufficient water put into the pan to keep it from burning.