A leg of five pounds should simmer very gently for about two hours, from the time it is put on, in cold water. After the general rules for boiling, in the [first chapter] of the Rudiments of Cookery, we have nothing to add, only to send up with it spinage ([No. 122]), broccoli ([No. 126]), cauliflower ([No. 125]), &c., and for sauce, [No. 261].
Veal.—(No. 4.)
This is expected to come to table looking delicately clean; and it is so easily discoloured, that you must be careful to have clean water, a clean vessel, and constantly catch the scum as soon and as long as it rises, and attend to the directions before given in the [first chapter] of the Rudiments of Cookery. Send up bacon ([No. 13]), fried sausages ([No. 87]), or pickled pork, greens, ([No. 118] and following Nos.) and parsley and butter ([No. 261]), onion sauce ([No. 298]).
N.B. For receipts to cook veal, see from [No. 512] to [No. 521].
Beef bouilli,—(No. 5.)
In plain English, is understood to mean boiled beef; but its culinary acceptation, in the French kitchen, is fresh beef dressed without boiling, and only very gently simmered by a slow fire.
Cooks have seldom any notion, that good soup can be made without destroying a great deal of meat; however, by a judicious regulation of the fire, and a vigilant attendance on the soup-kettle, this may be accomplished. You shall have a tureen of such soup as will satisfy the most fastidious palate, and the meat make its appearance at table, at the same time, in possession of a full portion of nutritious succulence.
This requires nothing more than to stew the meat very slowly (instead of keeping the pot boiling a gallop, as common cooks too commonly do), and to take it up as soon as it is done enough. See “Soup and bouilli” ([No. 238]), “Shin of beef stewed” ([No. 493]), “Scotch barley broth” ([No. 204]).
Meat cooked in this manner affords much more nourishment than it does dressed in the common way, is easy of digestion in proportion as it is tender, and an invigorating, substantial diet, especially valuable to the poor, whose laborious employments require support.
If they could get good eating put within their reach, they would often go to the butcher’s shop, when they now run to the public-house.