Meats
All meats are better in winter for being kept several weeks, and it is well, in summer, to keep them as long as you can with out danger of their being tainted. If it is not in your power to keep meat in an ice-house, in summer, keep it in a cool dark cellar, wrapped around with wet cloths, on top of which lay boughs of elderberry. The evaporation from the cloth will keep the meat cool and the elderberry will keep off insects.
If you should unfortunately be obliged to use stale meat or poultry, rub it in and out with soda, before washing it. Tough meats and poultry are rendered more tender by putting a little vinegar or a few slices of lemon in the water in which they are boiled. The use of an acid will save time and fuel in cooking them and will render them more tender and digestible. If possible, keep the meat so clean that it will not be necessary to wash it, as water extracts the juices. When it is frozen, lay it in cold water to thaw, and then cook quickly, to prevent its losing its moisture and sweetness. In roasting or boiling, use but little salt at first, as it hardens meat to do otherwise. In roasting, baste frequently, to prevent the meat from hardening on the outside, and try to preserve the juices. If possible, roast the meat on a spit before a large, open fire, after using salt, pepper, butter or lard, and dredging with flour. Where an open fire-place cannot be obtained, however, the meat may be well roasted in a stove or range. Mutton, pork, shote and veal should be well done, but beef should be cooked rare. In boiling, put on salt meat in cold water, but fresh meat in hot. Remember also that salt meat requires more water and a longer time to cook than fresh. Boil slowly, removing the scum that rises when it begins to simmer. Keep a tea-kettle of boiling water at hand to replenish the water in the pot, as it boils away. Do not let the meat boil too hard or too long, as this will toughen it and extract the juices. Add salt to fresh meat, just before it is done.
Lardering beef, veal, and poultry is a great improvement, keeping it moist whilst cooking and adding richness to the flavor. Lardering consists in introducing slips of clear fat bacon or salt pork, into the surface of meat, by means of a pin, sharp at one end and cleft into four divisions at the other. This pin may be obtained at any hardware store. As the housekeeper is sometimes hurried in preparing a dish, it will save time and trouble for her to keep on hand a bottle of meat-flavoring compounded of the following ingredients. 2 chopped onions. 3 pods of red pepper (chopped). 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar. 1 tablespoonful celery seed. 1 tablespoonful ground mustard. 1 teaspoonful turmeric. 1 teaspoonful black pepper. 1 teaspoonful salt. Put all in a quart bottle and fill it up with cider vinegar. A tablespoonful of this mixed in a stew, steak, or gravy, will impart not only a fine flavor, but a rich color. Keeping this mixture on hand will obviate the necessity of the housekeeper looking through various spice boxes and packages to get together the requisite ingredients for flavoring, and will thus save her time and trouble.