Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife Part 10

2 pounds top round of beef.

A little flour.

2 ounces salt pork.

2 cups tomatoes.

1 stalk celery.

1 onion.

2 bay leaves.

6 whole cloves.

6 peppercorns.

1 blade mace.

Cut the beef into 2-inch pieces and sprinkle with flour; fry the salt pork until light brown; add the beef and cook slowly for about thirty-five minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover with water and simmer about two hours; season with salt and pepper or paprika.

From the vegetables and spices a sauce is made as follows: Cook in sufficient water to cover for twenty minutes; then rub through a sieve, and add to some of the stock in which the meat was cooked. Thicken with flour, using 2 tablespoonfuls (moistened with cold water) to each cup of liquid, and season with salt and paprika.

Serve the meat on a platter with the sauce poured over it. Potatoes, carrots, and green peppers cooked until tender, and cut into small pieces or narrow strips, are usually sprinkled over the dish when served, and noodles may be arranged in a border upon the platter.

Goulash is a Hungarian dish which has come to be a favorite in the United States.

Ca.s.sEROLE COOKERY

A ca.s.serole is a heavy earthenware dish with a cover. A subst.i.tute for it can easily be improvised by using any heavy earthenware dish with a heavy plate for the cover. A ca.s.serole presentable enough in appearance to be put on the table serves the double purpose of baking and serving dish.

A suitable cut of beef or veal, and it may well be one of the cheaper cuts, as the long, slow cooking insures tenderness, may be cooked in a ca.s.serole.

Poultry and other meats besides beef or veal can be cooked in this manner. Chicken cooked in a ca.s.serole, which is a favorite and expensive dish in good hotels and restaurants, may be easily prepared in the home, and ca.s.serole cookery is to be recommended for a tough chicken.

The heat must be moderate and the cooking must occupy a long time.

Hurried cooking in a ca.s.serole is out of the question. If care is taken in this particular, and suitable seasonings are used, few who know anything of cooking should go astray.

Chopped meat also may be cooked in a ca.s.serole and this utensil is particularly useful for the purpose, because the food is served in the same dish in which it is cooked and may easily be kept hot, a point which is important with chopped meats, which usually cool rapidly.

MEAT COOKED WITH VINEGAR

Dishes of similar sort as regards cooking, but in which vinegar is used to give flavor as well as to soften the meat and make it tender, are the following:

SOUR BEEF

Take a piece of beef from the rump or the lower round, cover with vinegar or with a half-and-half mixture of vinegar and water, add sliced onion, bay leaves, and a few mixed whole spices and salt Allow to stand a week in winter or three or four days in summer; turn once a day and keep covered. When ready to cook, brown the meat in fat, using an enameled iron pan, strain the liquid over it and cook until tender; thicken the gravy with flour or ginger snaps (which may be broken up first), strain it, and pour over the sliced meat. Some cooks add cream.

SOUR BEEFSTEAK

Round steak may be cooked in water in which there is a little vinegar, or if the time is sufficient, it may be soaked for a few hours in vinegar and water and then cooked in a ca.s.serole or in some similar way.

POUNDED MEAT

Pounding meat before cooking is an old-fashioned method of making it tender, but while it has the advantage of breaking down the tough tissues it has the disadvantage of being likely to drive out the juices and with them the flavor. A very good way of escaping this difficulty is pounding flour into the meat; this catches and retains the juices. Below are given the recipes for two palatable dishes in which this is done:

FARMER STEW

Pound flour into both sides of a round steak, using as much as the meat will take up. This may be done with a meat pounder or with the edge of a heavy plate. Fry in drippings, b.u.t.ter, or other fat, in a Scotch bowl, or if more convenient in an ordinary iron kettle or a frying pan; then add water enough to cover it. Cover the dish very tightly so that the steam cannot escape and allow the meat to simmer for two hours or until it is tender. One advantage of this dish is that ordinarily it is ready to serve when the meat is done as the gravy is already thickened.

However, if a large amount of fat is used in the frying, the gravy may not be thick enough and must be blended with flour.

SPANISH BEEFSTEAK

Take a piece of round steak weighing two pounds and about an inch thick; pound until thin, season with salt and Cayenne pepper, cover with a layer of bacon or salt pork, cut into thin slices, roll and tie with a cord. Pour around it half a cupful of milk and half a cupful of water.

Place in a covered baking dish and cook two hours, basting occasionally.

CHOPPED MEAT

Chopping meat is one of the princ.i.p.al methods of making tough and inexpensive meat tender, i.e., dividing it finely and thus cutting the connective tissue into small bits. Such meats have another advantage in that they may be cooked quickly and economically.

Chopped raw meat of almost any kind can be very quickly made into a savory dish by cooking it with water or with water and milk for a short time, then thickening with b.u.t.ter and flour, and adding different seasonings as relished, either pepper and salt alone, or onion juice, celery, or tomato. Such a dish may be made to "go further" by serving it on toast or with a border of rice or in some similar combination.

SAVORY ROLLS

Savory rolls in great variety are made out of chopped meat either with or without egg. The variety is secured by the flavoring materials used and by the sauces with which the baked rolls are served. A few recipes will be given below. While these definite directions are given it should be remembered that a few general principles borne in mind make recipes unnecessary and make it possible to utilize whatever may happen to be on hand. Appetizing rolls are made with beef and pork mixed. The proportion varies from two parts of beef and one of pork to two of pork and one of beef. The rolls are always improved by laying thin slices of salt pork or bacon over them, which keep the surface moistened with fat during the roasting. These slices should be scored on the edge, so that they will not curl up in cooking. The necessity for the salt pork is greater when the chopped meat is chiefly beef than when it is largely pork or veal.

Bread crumbs or bread moistened in water can always be added, as it helps to make the dish go farther. When onions, green peppers, or other vegetables are used, they should always be thoroughly cooked in fat before being put in the roll, for usually they do not cook sufficiently in the length of time it takes to cook the meat. Sausage makes a good addition to the roll, but it is usually cheaper to use unseasoned pork meat with the addition of a little sage.

DEVELOPING FLAVOR OF MEAT

The typical meat flavors are very palatable to most persons, even when they are constantly tasted, and consequently the better cuts of meat in which they are well developed can be cooked and served without attention being paid especially to flavor. Careful cooking aids in developing the natural flavor of some of the cheaper cuts, and such a result is to be sought wherever it is possible. Browning also brings out flavors agreeable to most palates. Aside from these two ways of increasing the flavor of the meat itself there are countless ways of adding flavor to otherwise rather tasteless meats. The flavors may be added in preparing the meat for cooking, as in various seasoned dishes already described, or they may be supplied to cook meat in the form of sauces.

RETAINING NATURAL FLAVOR

As has already been pointed out, it is extremely difficult to retain the flavor-giving extractives in a piece of meat so tough as to require prolonged cooking. It is sometimes partially accomplished by first searing the exterior of the meat and thus preventing the escape of the juices. Another device, ill.u.s.trated by the following recipe, is to let them escape into the gravy which is served with the meat itself. A similar principle is applied when roasts are basted with their own juice.

ROUND STEAK ON BISCUITS

Cut round steak into pieces about one-half inch square, cover with water and cook it at a temperature just below the boiling point until it is tender, or boil for five minutes, and while still hot put into the fireless cooker and leave it for five hours. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with water, allowing two level tablespoonfuls to a cup of water. Pour the meat and gravy over split baking-powder biscuits so baked that they have a large amount of crust.

FLAVOR OF BROWNED MEAT OR FAT

Next to the unchanged flavor of the meat itself comes the flavor which is secured by browning the meat with fat. The outside slices of roast meat have this browned flavor in marked degree. Except in the case of roasts, browning for flavor is usually accomplished by heating the meat in a frying pan in fat which has been tried out of pork or in suet or b.u.t.ter. Care should be taken that the fat is not scorched. The chief reason for the bad opinion in which fried food is held by many is that it almost always means eating burned fat. When fat is heated too high it splits up into fatty acids and glycerin, and from the glycerin is formed a substance (acrolein) which has a very irritating effect upon the mucous membrane. All will recall that the fumes of scorched fat make the eyes water. It is not surprising that such a substance, if taken into the stomach, should cause digestive disturbance. Fat in itself is a very valuable food, and the objection to fried foods because they may be fat seems illogical. If they supply burned fat there is a good reason for suspicion. Many housekeepers cook bacon in the oven on a wire broiler over a pan and believe it more wholesome than fried bacon. The reason, of course, is that thus cooked in the oven there is less chance for the bacon becoming impregnated with burned fat. Where fried salt pork is much used good cooks know that it must not be cooked over a very hot fire, even if they have never heard of the chemistry of burned fat. The recipe for bean-pot roast and other similar recipes may be varied by browning the meat or part of it before covering with water. This results in keeping some of the natural flavoring within the meat itself and allowing less to go into the gravy. The flavor of veal can be very greatly improved in this way.

The following old-fashioned dishes made with pork owe their savoriness chiefly to the flavor of browned fat or meat: