(b) Put the beef, cut in pieces or slashed, into a jar with a cover, and tie it over with paper; stand the jar in a saucepan with plenty of water, but not enough to make the jar float. Setting the jar in the oven dries the meat. It should be well boiled gently, and the lid kept on the saucepan to keep the steam in.
(c) Mince 8 oz. gravy beef very finely, pour over 8 oz. cold water, and let it stand 1 hour; pour off the liquor, and it is ready.
(d) Dr. Stutzer has exposed the common superstition about the nourishing powers of beef tea. He extracted all the extractible matter from 100 gr. of beef with 100 gr. water, and a good proportion of salt, at a gentle heat for 4 hours, but could only succeed in obtaining in solution 1/12th the nourishing matter of the beef, the other 11/12th remaining behind in the bouilli. In other words, we should have to take ½ gal. beef tea made with beef to each pint of water before we got as much nourishment as is contained in ¼ lb. of steak. We might, it is true, evaporate our beef tea down to, say ½ pint, but we doubt if it would be palatable to the least squeamish invalid.
Tongue.—(a) Never boil a tongue, only simmer, and allow 3 hours for a large one. Never cure small ones. ¼ hour to every lb. is the usual time given when meat is simmered, for meat should not boil, as it hardens it; but you may know when the tongue is done, by its peeling readily. The skin should peel off as a glove, when drawn, does from the hand; and if the tongue is to be eaten cold, it can be glazed; or if warm, a few well-browned and sifted breadcrumbs put over it, and a paper frill should encircle its root. Many garnish warm tongue with flowers in the old-fashioned way; but these adornments interfere with the carver; serve browned or glazed, with simply a frill.
(b) A dried tongue should be put to soak all night in cold water; if it is only pickled, 2-3 hours will suffice. Put the tongue in a saucepan sufficiently large, and with as much cold water as will cover it well; put it on the fire until it comes to boil, then remove it to the side, let it simmer but not boil. A bunch of herbs in the water when boiling is a great improvement; while cooking the water should be skimmed.
(c) Put the tongue into an earthen pan, and lay on the top of it a few slices of butter; then cover the pan with a flour-and-water crust, and bake, according to size, in a moderately hot oven. When done, take off the skin, and straighten the tongue on a board, by means of skewers at the tip and root. When cold, glaze it, ornament it with a frill of paper, vegetables cut into shapes, and curled parsley.
Tournedos.—Cut some rump steak or fillet of beef in slices about ½ in. thick, trim them all to the shape of cutlets (pear shape), lay them in a marinade composed as follows: Olive oil and tarragon vinegar in equal parts, an onion and a carrot sliced; pepper, salt, and bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, parsley, and a few cloves. There should be enough marinade to cover the fillets, and they should lie in it for 12 hours. When wanted, take them out of the marinade, fry them in butter quickly on both sides, and arrange them in a circle on a dish alternately with slices of bread cut to the same shape as the fillets, and fried a golden colour also in butter. Pour in the centre of the dish some well made sharp sauce (sauce piquante, or sauce poivrade), and serve.
Vinaigrette.—Cut in thin slices the cold beef of the pot au feu. Mix in a small basin 1 teaspoonful mustard with some water and the yolk of an egg; stir it continually, and at the same time drop in some olive oil, drop by drop, until the sauce becomes pretty thick; then add a little vinegar, and continue stirring and dropping in the oil until you have as much sauce as you require. Add a hard egg chopped up in small pieces some chopped-up parsley and chervil, a little salt, and 3 tablespoonfuls good cream. Arrange the slices of beef round the dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Mutton (mouton). Baking.—In baking a joint in any kind of oven, the following rules must be enforced to command success. First of all, the joint must be placed in a proper baking tin, which can be bought of any ironmonger for 6-8s. This baking tin is a double tin, one placed inside another and has raised grating to place the meat on, which prevents its being sodden in the fat. Water is put in the under-tin to prevent any scorching of the dripping, which imparts such an unpleasant taste to the meat; the small amount of steam from this water helps to keep the meat from drying and hardening, but is not sufficient to sodden it. Secondly, the joint must be put into a thoroughly hot oven, which hardens the outside enough to keep in the gravy. After the first ¼ hour of brisk heat, lower the fire a little, keeping a moderate fire for the rest of the time. The joint must be turned the under side uppermost when it is half cooked, or it will not be evenly done or browned, as the main heat in stoves or kitcheners proceeds from the top of the oven. Thirdly, the oven door should be opened every 10 minutes for a second or two to allow the vapour from the meat to escape: it is the confined vapour of meat in a close oven that makes a baked joint offensive to a sensitive palate. To sum all up in a few words, the oven must be thoroughly hot when the joint is first put in, the meat must be raised above the dripping, water must be used in the under tin, and the oven door must be opened every 10 minutes. Suppose we have a leg or shoulder of mutton to cook, in an ordinary kitchener or stove oven, place the joint, ready trimmed, on the grating of your baking tin, the underside uppermost, as when it is turned it will bring the proper side up to send to table, and be ready for the final browning. Dust it over lightly with flour, and put a lump of dripping in the upper tin to baste with; pour sufficient cold water in the underneath baking tin. Put the joint into the hot oven, and let it remain ¼ hour, if a joint of 10-12 lb.; but if only 5-6 lb., 10 minutes will be enough. Open the oven door once in that time, and baste it at the end of the ¼ hour, then lower the fire a little, and keep a steady even fire all the time the joint is cooking. Baste every 10 minutes, at the same time the door is opened to let the vapour escape. Turn the joint, when half cooked, and flour it a little; and ¼ hour before it is finally cooked dust it well with flour, and do not baste it again unless any part of the meat refuses to moisten and brown, when a very little dripping may be put on this part to bring it to its right colour. When the meat is ready to dish up, take the baking tin out of the oven, put the meat on a warm common dish, and return it to the oven to keep hot while the fat is being separated from the gravy, which is best done by pouring both fat and gravy into a hot basin, and then skimming the fat off quickly with a large spoon. A shoulder of mutton will make very little gravy, and should have some made gravy added to it. An economical way of making the gravy nice is to boil a teacupful of water in a saucepan with a good pinch of salt and a little white pepper in it. Mix ½ teaspoonful flour in a little water until smooth, and stir into the boiling water. Let it boil a minute, and when all the fat is skimmed off the gravy pour the gravy into the saucepan, letting it simmer a second, and pour it over the meat or into a gravy tureen, and send to table.
Breast.—(a) With the poor, to whom fat is a necessity, this dish is much in vogue, but to be economical, even from their point of view, it must be bought at a low price. Persons accustomed to the prime parts of mutton are wont to despise the breast; but it may, with a little care and skill, be made into excellent dishes. It is essential that it should be partly prepared the day before using, as it cannot be freed sufficiently from fat until cold. After preparing in the following manner the meat may be made either into a mutton pasty, Devonshire pie mutton pudding, stew, or curry. It is besides excellent eaten cold. Cut the breast into convenient pieces, and lay them in a saucepan, meat downwards, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and slice 3 onions over them. If it is desired to use the fat drawn from the mutton in any way in which the flavour of onions would be objectionable, they must be omitted. Set the stewpan at a low heat, and allow the meat to cook gradually in its own fat and juices. It will take about 3 hours. When done put away the meat on a dish, and the fat in a basin. The next morning a little gravy will be found beneath the cake of fat, which will, from a breast of mutton weighing about 3 lb., be as much as ¾-1 lb. It is excellent fat either for making family cakes and pies or for frying. Use the gravy, with the addition of a little water or stock, onion or other vegetables to dress the meat, in any of the ways above mentioned.