It is evident from the principles already expounded that cold extraction takes out the albumen, therefore this must be avoided; also that boiling water will harden the albumen to leathery consistence. This may be shown experimentally by subjecting an ordinary beefsteak to the action of boiling water for about half an hour. It will come out in the abominable condition too often obtained by English cooks when they make an attempt at stewing—an unknown art to the majority of them. Such an ill-used morsel defies the efforts of ordinary human jaws, and is curiously curled and distorted. This toughening and curling is a result of the coagulation, hardening, and shrinkage of the albumen as already described.
It is evident, therefore, that neither cold water nor boiling water should be used in stewing, but water at the temperature at which albumen just begins to coagulate—i.e. about 134°, or between this and 160° as the extreme. My definition of stewing demands a qualification as regards the albumen. Although this is one of the juices of the meat when cold, it should not be extracted in ordinary stewing, as it is in the maceration for beef-tea, and thereby appear as a scum to be rejected. It should be barely coagulated, and thus retained in the meat in as tender a condition as possible. Being a colloid (see ante, [page 115]) its liability to diffusion is small. But here we encounter a serious difficulty. How is the unscientific cook to determine and maintain this temperature? If you tell her that the water must not boil, she shifts her stewpan to the side of the fire, where it shall only simmer, and she firmly believes that such simmering water has a lower temperature than water that is boiling violently over the fire. ‘It stands to reason’ that it must be so, and if the experimental philosopher appeals to fact and the evidence of the thermometer, he is a ‘theorist.’
The French cook escapes this simmering delusion by her common use of the bain-marie or ‘water-bath,’ as we call it in the laboratory, where it is also largely used for ‘digesting’ at temperatures below 212°. This is simply a vessel immersed in an outer vessel of water. The water in the outer vessel may boil, but that in the inner vessel cannot, as its evaporation keeps it below the temperature of the water from which its heat is derived. A carpenter’s glue-pot is a very good and compact form of water-bath. Some ironmongers keep in stock a form of water-bath which they call a ‘milk-scalder.’ This resembles the glue-pot, but has an inner vessel of earthenware which is, of course, a great improvement upon the carpenter’s device, as it may be so easily cleaned. Captain Warren’s, and other similar ‘cooking-pots,’ may be used as water-baths by removing the cover of the inner vessel.
One of the incidental advantages of the bain-marie is that the stewing may be performed in earthenware or even glass vessels, seeing that they are not directly exposed to the fire. Other forms of such double vessels are obtainable at the best ironmongers. I have lately seen a very neat apparatus of this kind, called ‘Dolby’s Extractor,’ made by Messrs. Griffiths & Browett of Birmingham. This consists of an earthenware vessel that rests on a ledge, and thus hangs in an outer tin-plate vessel; but, instead of water, there is an air space surrounding the earthenware pot. A top screws over this, and the whole stands in an ordinary saucepan of water. The heat is thus very slowly and steadily communicated through an air-bath, and it makes excellent beef-tea.
At temperatures below the boiling point evaporation proceeds superficially, and the rate of evaporation at a given temperature is proportionate to the surface exposed, irrespective of the total quantity of water; therefore, the shallower the inner vessel of the bain-marie, and the greater its upper outspread, the lower will be the temperature of its liquid contents when its sides and bottom are heated by boiling water. The water in a basin-shaped inner vessel will have a lower temperature than that in a vessel of similar depth, with upright sides, and exposing an equal water surface. A good water-bath for stewing may be extemporised by using a common pudding-basin (I mean one with projecting rim, as used for tying down the pudding-cloth), and selecting a saucepan just big enough for this to drop into, and rest upon its rim. Put the meat, &c., to be stewed into the basin, pour hot water over them, and hot water into the saucepan, so that the basin shall be in a water-bath; then let this outer water simmer—very gently, so as not to jump the basin with its steam. Stew thus for about double the time usually prescribed in English cookery-books, and compare the result with similar materials stewed in boiling or ‘simmering’ water.
I have already (page 91) referred to the frying that, in most cases, should precede stewing. It not only supplies the caramel browning there described, but moderates the extraction of the juices which, as I have said above, is desirable on the part of the meat itself when gravy is not the primary object.
Some further explanation is here necessary, as it is quite possible to obtain what commonly passes for tenderness by a very flagrant violation of the principles above expounded. This is done on a large scale and in extreme degree in the preparation of ordinary Australian tinned meat. A number of tins are filled with the meat, and soldered down close, all but a small pin-hole. They are then placed in a bath charged with a saline substance, such as chloride of zinc, which has a higher boiling point than water. This is heated up to its boiling point, and consequently the water which is in the tins with the meat boils vigorously, and a jet of steam mixed with air blows from the pin-hole. When all the air is expelled, and the jet is of pure steam only (a difference detected at once by the trained expert), the tin is removed, and a little melted solder skilfully dropped on the hole to seal the tin hermetically. An examination of one of these tins will show this final soldering with, in some, a flap below to prevent any solder from falling in amongst the meat. The object of this is to exclude all air, for if only a very small quantity remains, oxidation and putrefaction speedily ensues, as shown by a bulging of the tins instead of the partial collapse that should occur when the steam condenses, the display of which collapse is an indication of the good quality of the contents.
By ‘good quality’ I mean good of its kind; but, as everybody knows who has tried beef and mutton thus prepared, it is not satisfactory. The preservation from putrefactive decomposition is perfectly successful, and all the original constituents of the meat are there. It is apparently tender, but practically tough—i.e. it falls to pieces at a mere touch of the knife, but these fragments offer to the teeth a peculiar resistance to proper mastication. I may describe their condition as one of pertinacious fibrosity. The fibres separate, but they are stubborn fibres still.
This is a very serious matter, for, were it otherwise, the great problem of supplying our dense population with an abundance of cheap animal food would have been solved about twenty years ago. As it is, the plain tinned-meat enterprise has not developed to any important extent beyond affording a variation with salt junk on board ship.
What is the rationale of this defect? Beyond the general statement that the meat is ‘overdone,’ I have met with no attempt at explanation, but am not, therefore, disposed to give up the riddle without attempting a solution.