226. Sugg’s “Westminster” Gas Kitchener.
Sugg’s “Westminster” gas kitcheners (Fig. 226) possess the following advantages:—(1) Thoroughly ventilated cooking chamber, lined with enamelled iron, suitable for roasting joints and poultry, and baking bread and light pastry. (2) The luminous flames used in this chamber give off no offensive odour. The products of combustion are as harmless as those from an ordinary gas burner. (3) The flavour of meat, game, &c., is preserved, as they are roasted by radiant heat in a well-ventilated chamber as perfectly as they would be before a good bright fire. (4) The juices of the meat are retained in the joint, making it more nourishing than when roasted in any other way. (5) The waste of meat by cooking is much less than that incurred by roasting in coal kitcheners and imperfectly ventilated ovens. The saving in weight of meat thus secured will more than pay for the gas. (6) For baking bread and pastry it is unrivalled. Many persons are unable to eat bread and pastry baked in coal and other imperfectly ventilated ovens because it is indigestible. The bread baked in this kitchener is equal to the best Parisian bread, light and easily digestible, and can be eaten on the same day as baked without danger of indigestion. Pastry, when properly made, and baked in this kitchener, is wholesome and very digestible. (7) The hot plate is fitted with three burners—one of which is both a grilling and boiling burner. Toast, chops, steaks, or any kind of grilled food can be prepared in a very perfect manner by this grilling burner. (8) Properly made toast and grilled meat is so important to invalids and persons of delicate appetite, and even for more robust constitutions, that the advantages of a kitchener on which can be prepared successfully such kinds of food, cannot be over-estimated. (9) The “Westminster” kitchener is simple and easy to use. It is substantially made and durable. Every part being marked, it can be taken to pieces and put together easily. Any part being broken can be replaced with greatest facility. The outside of the oven under the boiling burners is now also enamelled, greatly adding to its durability, appearance, and cleanliness.
The “Eagle range” (Eagle Range and Foundry Co., 176, Regent Street, London), Fig. 70, is made in all sizes from 2 ft. to 10 ft., either portable or for fixing (to meet all requirements), with 1 to 4 ovens, with or without hot closets (for keeping joints, &c., hot for serving or cutting), or with grill attached for business houses. This range has the following advantages, viz. an adjustable bottom grating to the fire-box, by means of which the fire can be brought up close to the hot plate for oven work, &c., or the bottom grating can be lowered to give a large surface for roasting in front; a convertible closed or open fire (the conversion needing 2 movements only); a reversing damper fitted to one (or both) of the ovens, by means of which the flame can be directed to give an excess heat at the bottom or at the top of the oven as desired; iron flues, requiring no brick setting, automatic cinder sifter, &c.
These and all ranges that have iron coving plates at sides and back above the hot plate, can be covered with glazed tiles (either plain white or pattern), which is of great convenience in dark kitchens, and to be recommended for cleanliness and good appearance. It will be well understood that any of the ranges mentioned can be fitted with any description of boiler required, but the power of the boilers differs considerably in the different makes. The above-mentioned firm make a speciality of hot water supply.
The Kitchen: Pots and Pans. Continued from p. [240].
Stanley’s Heat Conductors.—Flesh is known to be a very bad conductor of heat; therefore the perfect cooking of the inside of joints by the ordinary culinary methods involves the excessive cooking of the outside, with corresponding loss of the nutritious juices of the meat.
The object of this invention is to provide means by which the interior parts may be cooking simultaneously with the outer parts. This is effected by plated conductors which conduct the exterior surrounding heat to the interior parts. The advantage in this cannot be over-estimated, as the quicker the heat can be conveyed to the middle of the joint, so much more can its gravy and nutriment be preserved, thereby rendering the food much more palatable and wholesome, besides saving time, fuel, and food to a great extent.
The scientific principle of these conductors depends upon the fact that a piece of metal, such as copper, which is a good conductor of heat, will conduct heat nearly equally throughout its mass, whatever part is heated. Thus, if a properly constructed conductor so exposed to a source of heat, as that of an open fire, or in an oven, or in boiling water, the other part which is placed within the joint of meat to be cooked, will become heated nearly equally to the exposed part, so that, in cooking, these conductors, when placed in a joint of meat, cook the interior as quickly as the exterior parts. The only other important scientific condition observed is that the exposed part or collector of the conductor has to be a dark colour, so as to absorb and not reflect the surrounding heat. In all cases the copper is thickly plated to render it quite unobjectionable when in contact with the flesh.
