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Some Kitchen Kinks: Savory
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.
Cannelon of Beef.
This dish is prepared by making chopped beef into a roll and baking it wrapped in a buttered paper, a method designed to keep in the steam and so insure a moist, tender dish.
The paper must be removed before serving. The roll should be basted occasionally with butter and water or drippings and water. In preparing the roll an egg may be added for each pound and a half of meat, and chopped parsley, onion juice, lemon peel, or finely chopped green peppers make good seasoning. A thickened gravy may be made from the drippings, the liquid used being either water or tomato juice.
Strips of pork laid on the roll may be substituted for the buttered paper and basting.
Filipino Beef. 1 pound round beef. 1½ pound lean fresh pork. 1 small onion.
APPENDIX 1 green pepper. 1 teaspoonful of salt. 1 cup of soft stale bread crumbs. 1 egg. 2 cups of stewed tomatoes. 2 slices of bacon. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 4 tablespoonfuls of flour.
Remove the seeds from the pepper and put it through the meat grinder with the meats and the onion. Add crumbs, egg, and salt. Make into a roll, place in a shallow baking dish, pour the strained tomatoes around it, put the bacon on top, and bake forty minutes, basting with the tomatoes. Thicken the gravy with the flour cooked in the butter. A little seasoning such as a bit of bay leaf, a clove, and a small piece of onion improves the tomato sauce. As the pepper and onion are not likely to be cooked as soon as the meat, it is well to fry them in a little fat before adding to the other ingredients.
This dish will serve 6 to 8 people.
When the meat is 20 cents a pound and every other item is valued at usual town market prices, the dish costs about 50 cents. If the meat costs only 10 cents per pound and vegetables from the garden are used the initial cost of the dish will be small. Since no vegetable except potatoes or rice need be served with this dish, it may be said to answer the purpose of both meat and vegetable.
Mock Rabbit. 1/2 pound round steak, and 1 pound sausage; or 1 pound round steak, and 1/2 pound sausage meat. 3 slices of bread moistened with water. 1 egg. 1 onion. 1/4 pound salt pork.
Pepper and salt.
These are meat loaves under older names, written for cooks who understood that a chopped-meat roll is a formula rather than a fixed recipe. The instructions assume knowledge the page never states, chiefly oven heat and doneness.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given anywhere, and the book names no oven term either. A moderate oven, roughly 350-375F in modern terms, suits a roll of this size; the forty minutes the Filipino Beef recipe allows may well be short for a mixture built on two and a half pounds of meat, so judge the centre rather than the clock.
- The doneness that mattersThese mixtures contain ground pork, and ground meat must reach 160F throughout. Judge by an instant-read thermometer in the centre of the roll, not by the clock, since the shape you form controls the timing more than the weight does.
- Cook the aromatics firstThe text says this twice and it is the hinge of the dish. Onion and green pepper stirred in raw will still be crunchy and harsh when the meat is done; soften them in fat first and let them cool before mixing.
- Buttered paperThe cannelon method wraps the roll in paper greased with butter to trap steam. Parchment does the job; foil traps steam too but will not brown the surface at all. Either way it comes off before serving.
- Scoring the baconNicking the edge of each bacon or salt-pork slice every inch keeps it from shrinking into a curl and sliding off. Modern thin-cut bacon curls more than the old thick salt pork did, so the cut is worth making.
- Salt porkSalt pork is unsmoked, so fatback or pancetta gives a cleaner result if you want no smoky note; the text itself, however, treats bacon as an equal alternative and Filipino Beef calls for bacon outright. Reduce added salt accordingly.
- Filipino Beef quantitiesOne pound beef to one and a half pounds pork gives a rich, soft roll; the flour and butter make a straightforward roux thickening the strained tomato drippings. The stated yield of 6 to 8 is honest.
- Mock Rabbit is incompleteOnly an ingredient list is given. Treat it as the same method: grind or chop the steak with the onion, mix with sausage, soaked squeezed bread and egg, form a roll, lay the salt pork over it and bake as above.
- Bread as extender"Soft stale bread crumbs" means torn interior crumb from day-old bread, not dry packaged crumbs, which absorb far more liquid. If using dried crumbs, use about half as much or the roll turns pasty.
"Kinks" in this period meant knacks or clever turns of practice, and the section is written in that spirit: a set of principles for stretching meat rather than fixed formulas. Cannelon is the French cannelon, a rolled or cylindrical shape, and cannelon of beef appears in American and English cookery books from the later nineteenth century as a name for a shaped chopped-beef roll. Mock Rabbit belongs to the long family of "mock" dishes -- mock turtle, mock duck, mock crab -- in which a cheap mixture takes the name of something better. The costing note in Filipino Beef, at ten to twenty cents a pound for meat, marks the book as home-economics writing aimed at households budgeting to the dime; the name most likely reflects the American interest in the Philippines following 1898 rather than any Filipino cooking practice.