Select a small shin of beef of moderate size, crack the bone in small pieces, wash and place it in a kettle to boil, with five or six quarts of cold water. Let it boil about two hours, or until it begins to get tender, then season it with a tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper; boil it one hour longer, then add to it one carrot, two turnips, two tablespoonfuls of rice or pearl barley, one head of celery, and a teaspoonful of summer savory powdered fine; the vegetables to be minced up in small pieces like dice. After these ingredients have boiled a quarter of an hour, put in two potatoes cut up in small pieces, let it boil half an hour longer; take the meat from the soup, and if intended to be served with it, take out the bones and lay it closely and neatly on a dish, and garnish with sprigs of parsley. Serve made mustard and catsup with it. It is very nice pressed and eaten cold with mustard and vinegar, or catsup. Four hours are required for making this soup. Should any remain over the first day, it may be heated, with the addition of a little boiling water, and served again. Some fancy a glass of brown sherry added just before being served. Serve very hot.
Take three jills of milk, when boiled, take a penny loaf sliced thin, cut off the out crust, put on the boiling milk, let it stand close covered till it be cold, and beat it very well till all the lumps be broke; take five eggs beat very well, grate in a little nutmeg, shred some lemon-peel, and a quarter of a pound of butter or beef-suet, with as much sugar as will sweeten it; and currans as many as you please; let them be well cleaned; so put them into your dish, and bake or boil it.
About three pounds of fillet of beef roasted in a good hot oven for forty minutes; let it be rather underdone. Take three turnips, four good-sized carrots, cut them into jardinière slices. Cook them separately in salted water, drain them and add salt, pepper, a tiny pinch of sugar and one dessert-spoonful of butter. Dress the fillet on a long dish with the garniture of carrots and turnips, and some artichoke-bottoms cooked in water and finished with butter, also add some potatoes château. Be sure the dish is very hot. Put a little water, or, for choice, clear stock, upon the roasting-dish and pour it over the fillet.
Remarks on Soup Stock. There is a number of methods of making soup stocks, and no two will give exactly the same results. One of the simplest and most satisfactory is that of clear stock or bouillon. By this the best flavor of the meat is obtained, for none passes off in steam, as when the meat is boiled rapidly. The second mode is in boiling the stock a great deal, to reduce it. This gives a very rich soup, with a marked difference in the flavor from that made with clear meat kept in water at the boiling point. The third way leaves a mixed stock, which will not be clear unless whites of eggs are used. In following the first methods we buy clear beef specially for the stock, and know from the beginning just how much stock there will be when the work is completed. By the second method we are not sure, because more or less than we estimate may boil away. The third stock, being made from bones and pieces of meat left from roasts, and from the trimmings of raw meats, will always be changeable in color, quantity and quality. This is, however, a very important stock, and it should always be kept on hand. No household, even where only a moderate amount of meat is used, should be without a stock-pot. It can be kept on the back of the range or stove while cooking is going on. Two or three times a week it should be put on with the trimmings and bones left from cooked and uncooked meats. This practice will give a supply of stock at all times, which will be of the greatest value in making sauces, side dishes and soups. Meat if only slightly tainted will spoil a stock; therefore great care must be taken that every particle is perfectly sweet. Vegetables make a stock sour very quickly, so if you wish to keep a stock do not use them. Many rules advise putting vegetables into the stock-pot with the meat and water and cooking from the very beginning. When this is done they absorb the fine flavor of the meat and give the soup a rank taste. They should cook not more than an hour--the last hour--in the stock. A white stock is made with veal or poultry. The water in which a leg of mutton or fowl have been boiled makes a good stock for light soups and gravies. A soup stock must be cooled quickly or it will not keep well. In winter any kind of stock ought to keep good a week. That boiled down to a jelly will last the longest. In the warm months three days will be the average time stock will keep.
Take a houghil of beef, cut it in pieces, with part of a neck of mutton, and a pound of French barley; put them all into your pot, with six quarts of water; let it boil 'till the barley be soft, then put in a fowl; as soon as 'tis enough put in a handful of red beet leaves or brocoli, a handful of the blades of onions, a handful of spinage, washed and shred very small; only let them have a little boil, else it will spoil the greenness. Serve it up with the fowl in a dish, garnish'd with raspings of bread.
Take the Lean of a Leg of Veal, and cut out the Sinews, mince it very small, and with it some fat of Beef suet; if the Leg of Veal be of a Cow Calfe, the Udder will be good instead of Beef suet; when it is very well beaten together with the mincing Knife, have some Cloves, Mace, and Pepper beaten, and with Salt season your meat, putting in some Vinegar, then make up your meat into little Balls, and having very good strong Broth made of Mutton, set your Balls to boyle in it; when they are boyled enough, take the yolks of five or six Eggs well beaten with as much Vinegar as you please to like, and some of the Broth mingled together, stir it into all your Balls and Broth, give it a waume on the fire, then Dish up the Balls upon Sippits and pour the sauce on it.
Boil a calf's head (after having cleaned it) until tender, then split it in two, and keep the best half (bone it if you like); cut the meat from the other in uniform pieces, the size of an oyster; put bits of butter, the size of a nutmeg, all over the best half of the head; sprinkle pepper over it, and dredge on flour until it looks white, then set it on a trivet or muffin rings in a dripping-pan; put a cup of water into the pan, and set it in a hot oven; turn it that it may brown evenly; baste once or twice. Whilst this is doing, dip the prepared pieces of the head in wheat flour or batter, and fry in hot lard or beef drippings a delicate brown; season with pepper and salt and slices of lemon, if liked. When the roast is done put it on a hot dish, lay the fried pieces around it, and cover it with a tin cover; put the gravy from the dripping-pan into the pan in which the pieces were fried, with the slices of lemon, and a tablespoonful of browned flour, and, if necessary, a little hot water. Let it boil up once, and strain it into a gravy boat, and serve with the meat.
Take part of a round of fresh beef (or if you prefer it a piece of the flank or brisket) and rub it with salt. Place skewers in the bottom of the stew-pot, and lay the meat upon them with barely water enough to cover it. To enrich the gravy you may add the necks and other trimmings of whatever poultry you may happen to have; also the root of a tongue, if convenient. Cover the pot, and set it over a quick fire. When it boils and the scum has risen, skim it well, and then diminish the fire so that the meat shall only simmer; or you may set the pot on hot coals. Then put in four or five carrots sliced thin, a head of celery cut up, and four or fire sliced turnips. Add a bunch of sweet herbs, and a small table-spoonful of black pepper-corns tied in a thin muslin rag. Let it stew slowly for four or fire hours, and then add a dozen very small onions roasted and peeled, and a large table-spoonful of capers or nasturtians. You may, if you choose, stick a clove in each onion. Simmer it half an hour longer, then take up the meat, and place-it in a dish, laying the vegetables round it. Skim and strain the gravy; season it with catchup, and made mustard, and serve it up in a boat. Mutton may be cooked in this manner.
10 lbs. Thick Brisket of Beef, Corned or Fresh--1s. 6d.
1 fagot of Herbs
1 stalk Celery--1/2d.
1 Onion
2 Carrots
1 Turnip
40 Peppercorns--1 1/2d.
Total Cost--1s. 8d.
Time--Four Hours
Bind the beef with tapes to keep it a good shape. If it is corned, put it on in cold water; if fresh, in hot stock or water, and bring to the boil, then skim carefully and put in the vegetables and peppercorns. Simmer very gently indeed for four hours, then take it up. Take off the tapes, slip out the bones, and put it into a dish; place a piece of board on the top and some heavy weights and leave till the next day, then turn out and serve with a salad. If fresh meat is used for this dish the liquor may be used for soup, or the bones may be put back when removed from the meat and boiled without the lid very quickly for an hour. Then strain off and stand away till the next day; it should then be in a strong jelly. This may be cut into blocks and put round the meat.
In the selection of meat it is most essential that we understand how to choose it; in beef it should be a smooth, fine grain, of a clear bright red color, the fat white, and will feel tender when pinched with the fingers. Will also have abundant kidney fat or suet. The most choice pieces for roast are the sirloin, fore and middle ribs. Veal, to be good, should have the flesh firm and dry, fine grained and of a delicate pinkish color, and plenty of kidney fat; the joints stiff. Mutton is good when the flesh is a bright red, firm and juicy and a close grain, the fat firm and white. Pork, if young, the lean will break on being pinched smooth when nipped with the fingers, also the skin will break and dent; if the rind is rough and hard it is old. In roasting meat, allow from fifteen to twenty minutes to the pound, which will vary according to the thickness of the roast. A great deal of the success in roasting depends on the heat and goodness of the fire; if put into a cool oven it loses its juices, and the result is a tough, tasteless roast; whereas, if the oven is of the proper heat, it immediately sears up the pores of the meat and the juices are retained. The oven should be the hottest when the meat is put into it, in order to quickly crisp the surface and close the pores of the meat, thereby confining its natural juices. If the oven is too hot to hold the hand in for only a moment, then it is right to receive the meat. The roast should first be washed in pure water, then wiped dry with a clean dry cloth, placed in a baking pan without any seasoning; some pieces of suet or cold drippings laid under it, but no water should be put into the pan, for this would have a tendency to soften the outside of the meat. The water can never get so hot as the hot fat upon the surface of the meat, and the generating of the steam prevents its crispness, so desirable in a roast. It should be frequently basted with its own drippings, which flow from the meat when partly cooked, and well seasoned. Lamb, veal and pork should be cooked rather slower than beef, with a more moderate fire, covering the fat with a piece of paper, and thoroughly cooked till the flesh parts from the bone, and nicely browned, without being burned. An onion sliced and put on top of a roast while cooking, especially roast of pork, gives a nice flavor. Remove the onion before serving. Larding meats is drawing ribbons of fat pork through the upper surface of the meat, leaving both ends protruding. This is accomplished by the use of a larding needle, which may be procured at house-furnishing stores. Boiling or stewing meat, if fresh, should be put into boiling water, closely covered and boiled slowly, allowing twenty minutes to each pound, and, when partly cooked, or when it begins to get tender, salted, adding spices and vegetables. Salt meats should be covered with cold water, and require thirty minutes very slow boiling, from the time the water boils, for each pound; if it is very salt, pour off the first water and put it in another of boiling water, or it may be soaked one night in cold water. After meat commences to boil the pot should never stop simmering and always be replenished from the boiling tea-kettle. Frying may be done in two ways. One method, which is most generally used, is by putting one ounce or more (as the case requires) of beef drippings, lard or butter into a frying pan, and when at the boiling point lay in the meat, cooking both sides a nice brown. The other method is to completely immerse the article to be cooked in sufficient hot lard to cover it, similar to frying doughnuts. Broiled meats should be placed over clear, red coals free from smoke, giving out a good heat, but not too brisk, or the meat will be hardened and scorched; but if the fire is dead the gravy will escape and drop upon the coals, creating a blaze, which will blacken and smoke the meat. Steaks and chops should be turned often, in order that every part should be evenly done--never sticking a fork into the lean part, as that lets the juices escape; it should be put into the outer skin or fat. When the meat is sufficiently broiled it should be laid on a hot dish and seasoned. The best pieces for steak are the porterhouse, sirloin and rump.
