The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 20

[Read the first chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery.]

_Leg of Mutton._--(No. 1.)

Cut off the shank bone, and trim the knuckle, put it into lukewarm water for ten minutes, wash it clean, cover it with cold water, and let it simmer _very gently_, and skim it carefully. A leg of nine pounds will take two and a half or three hours, if you like it thoroughly done, especially in very cold weather.

For the accompaniments, see the following receipt.

N.B. The _t.i.t-bits_ with an epicure are the "knuckle," the kernel, called the "_pope's eye_," and the "_gentleman's_" or "_cramp bone_,"

or, as it is called in Kent, the "CAW CAW," four of these and a bounder furnish the little masters and mistresses of Kent with their most favourite set of playthings.

A leg of mutton stewed _very slowly_, as we have directed the beef to be (No. 493), will be as agreeable to an English appet.i.te as the famous "_gigot[108-*] de sept heures_" of the French kitchen is to a Parisian palate.

When mutton is very large, you may divide it, and _roast the fillet_, i.

e. the large end, and _boil the knuckle end_; you may also cut some fine cutlets off the thick end of the leg, _and so have two or three good hot dinners_. See Mrs. MAKEITDO'S receipt how to make a leg of mutton last a week, in "_the housekeeper's leger_," printed for Whittaker, Ave-Maria Lane.

_The liquor the mutton is boiled in_, you may convert into good soup in five minutes, (see N.B. to No. 218,) and Scotch barley broth (No. 204).

Thus managed, a leg of mutton is a most economical joint.

_Neck of Mutton._--(No. 2.)

Put four or five pounds of the best end of a neck (that has been kept a few days) into as much cold soft water as will cover it, and about two inches over; let it simmer very slowly for two hours: it will look most delicate if you do not take off the skin till it has been boiled.

For sauce, that elegant and innocent relish, parsley and b.u.t.ter (No.

261), or eschalot (No. 294 or 5), or caper sauce (No. 274), mock caper sauce (No. 275), and onion sauce (No. 298), turnips (No. 130), or spinage (No. 121), are the usual accompaniments to boiled mutton.

_Lamb._--(No. 3.)

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 sc.u.m 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 b.u.t.ter (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.

Among the variety of schemes that have been suggested for bettering the condition of the poor, a more useful or extensive charity cannot be devised, than that of instructing them in economical and comfortable cookery, except providing them with spectacles.

"The poor in Scotland, and on the Continent, manage much better. Oatmeal porridge (Nos. 205 and 572) and milk, const.i.tute the breakfast and supper of those patterns of industry, frugality, and temperance, the Scottish peasantry.

"When they can afford meat, they form with it a large quant.i.ty of barley broth (No. 204), with a variety of vegetables, by boiling the whole a long time, enough to serve the family for several days.

"When they cannot afford meat, they make broth of barley and other vegetables, with a lump of b.u.t.ter (see No. 229), all of which they boil for many hours, and this with oat cakes forms their dinner." COCHRANE'S _Seaman's Guide_, p. 34.

The cheapest method of making a nourishing soup is least known to those who have most need of it. (See No. 229.)

Our neighbours the French are so justly famous for their skill in the affairs of the kitchen, that the adage says, "as many Frenchmen as many cooks:" surrounded as they are by a profusion of the most delicious wines and most seducing _liqueurs_, offering every temptation and facility to render drunkenness delightful: yet a tippling Frenchman is a "_rara avis_;" they know how so easily and completely to keep life in repair by good eating, that they require little or no adjustment from drinking.

This accounts for that "_toujours gai_," and happy equilibrium of spirits, which they enjoy with more regularity than any people. Their stomach, being unimpaired by spirituous liquors, embrace and digest vigorously the food they sagaciously prepare for it, and render easily a.s.similable by cooking it sufficiently, wisely contriving to get the difficult part of the work of the stomach done by fire and water.

_To salt Meat._--(No. 6.)

In the _summer_ season, especially, meat is frequently spoiled by the cook forgetting to take out the kernels; one in the udder of a round of beef, in the fat in the middle of the round, those about the thick end of the flank, &c.: if these are not taken out, all the salt in the world will not keep the meat.

The art of salting meat is to rub in the salt thoroughly and evenly into every part, and to fill all the holes full of salt where the kernels were taken out, and where the butcher's skewers were.

A round of beef of 25 pounds will take a pound and a half of salt to be rubbed in all at first, and requires to be turned and rubbed every day with the brine; it will be ready for dressing in four or five days,[111-*] if you do not wish it very salt.

In _summer_, the sooner meat is salted after it is killed the better; and care must be taken to defend it from the flies.

In _winter_, it will eat the shorter and tenderer, if kept a few days (according to the temperature of the weather) until its fibre has become short and tender, as these changes do not take place after it has been acted upon by the salt.

In frosty weather, take care the meat is not frozen, and warm the salt in a frying-pan. The extremes of heat[111-+] and cold are equally unfavourable for the process of salting. In the former, the meat changes before the salt can affect it: in the latter, it is so hardened, and its juices are so congealed, that the salt cannot penetrate it.

If you wish it red, rub it first with saltpetre, in the proportion of half an ounce, and the like quant.i.ty of moist sugar, to a pound of common salt. (See Savoury salt beef, No. 496.)

You may impregnate meat with a very agreeable vegetable flavour, by pounding some sweet herbs (No. 459,) and an onion with the salt. You may make it still more relishing by adding a little ZEST (No. 255), or _savoury spice_ (No. 457).

_To pickle Meat._

"Six pounds of salt, one pound of sugar, and four ounces of saltpetre, boiled with four gallons of water, skimmed, and allowed to cool, forms a very strong pickle, which will preserve any meat completely immersed in it. To effect this, which is essential, either a heavy board or a flat stone must be laid upon the meat. The same pickle may be used repeatedly, provided it be boiled up occasionally with additional salt to restore its strength, diminished by the combination of part of the salt with the meat, and by the dilution of the pickle by the juices of the meat extracted. By boiling, the alb.u.men, which would cause the pickle to spoil, is coagulated, and rises in the form of sc.u.m, which must be carefully removed."--See _Supplement to Encyclop. Britan._ vol.

iv. p. 340.

Meat kept immersed in pickle gains weight. In one experiment by Messrs.

Donkin and Gamble, there was a gain of three per cent., and in another of two and a half; but in the common way of salting, when the meat is not immersed in pickle, there is a loss of about one pound, or one and a half, in sixteen. See Dr. Wilkinson's account of the preserving power of PYRO-LIGNEOUS ACID, &c. in the Philosophical Magazine for 1821, No. 273, p. 12.

An H-bone of 10 or 12 pounds weight will require about three-quarters of a pound of salt, and an ounce of moist sugar, to be well rubbed into it.

It will be ready in four or five days, if turned and rubbed every day.