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Some Kitchen Kinks: Flavor
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, illustrated 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 2 level tablespoonsful 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 butter. 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 nas 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 tried 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:
The page is mostly an essay on where meat flavor comes from, but it contains one working recipe — round steak simmered to tenderness and served over split biscuits. The chemistry lesson on burned fat is sound and still worth heeding at the stove.
- The fireless cookerA fireless cooker was an insulated box: food was brought to a boil, then sealed in to finish on retained heat with no further fuel. The modern equivalent is a slow cooker or a low oven, and either is preferable — an insulated box coasts down through the bacterial danger zone over five hours, which is exactly the condition that favors Clostridium perfringens in cooked meat. Simmer the steak on the stovetop or hold it at 300F in a covered pot, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours until fork-tender.
- "Just below the boiling point"This means roughly 180 to 195F — bare shivering movement, not a rolling boil. Round is lean and gets stringy if boiled hard; the gentle heat is what makes it tender rather than shredded.
- Cutting the meatHalf-inch dice from round steak is small; expect it to give up most of its juice to the liquid, which is precisely the point the author is making. Buy top or bottom round, about 1 1/2 lb, and barely cover it with water.
- The thickening ratioTwo level tablespoons of flour to a cup of water gives a medium gravy. Whisk the flour into cold water first, then stir into the simmering liquid and cook a good three minutes so the raw starch taste goes.
- Biscuits with crustThe instruction to bake them "so that they have a large amount of crust" is not explained; rolling thin and spacing them apart on the sheet rather than crowding them for soft sides is the likely intent. Crowded biscuits steam each other and go to mush under gravy.
- "Tried out of pork" and suetTried-out pork fat is rendered lard; suet is raw beef kidney fat, which you render yourself or buy from a butcher. Either can be replaced with lard, beef tallow or clarified butter.
- The acrolein pointThe author's warning holds up. Fat pushed past its smoke point breaks down and releases acrolein, the acrid compound that stings the eyes. Keep rendered lard below about 370F and butter below about 300F unless clarified; if the pan is smoking, the flavor is already spoiled.
- YieldNot stated. The quantities as scaled above serve four over two biscuits each.
This comes out of the domestic-science movement of the early twentieth century, when household writers began explaining cooking in the vocabulary of chemistry — "extractives," glycerin, acrolein — rather than by rule of thumb alone. The fireless cooker it depends on was a period enthusiasm: a wooden or metal chest packed with hay, felt or mineral wool, into which a boiling pot was lowered and left, saving coal or gas at a time when tending a range meant tending a fire. Cheap cuts like round were exactly what such cookers were sold to redeem, and serving the meat and its gravy together over split biscuits is a thoroughly American economy — the biscuit soaks up the flavor that the long cooking has drawn out of the beef. The observation that housekeepers thought oven-cooked bacon "more wholesome" than pan-fried is offered here as folk practice confirmed by chemistry.