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Plain Cookery (To Boil Meats etc)

To Boil Meats, etc.

The most simple of culinary processes is not often performed in perfection, though it does not require so much nicety and attendance as roasting; to skim the pot well, and to keep it moderately boiling , and to know how long the joint requires, comprehends the most useful point of this branch of cookery. The cook must take especial care that the water really boils all the while she is cooking, or she will be deceived in the time.

An adept cook will manage with much less fire for boiling than she uses for roasting, and it will last all the time without much mending. When the water is coming to a boil there will always rise from the cleanest meat a scum to the top, this must be carefully taken off as soon as it appears, for on this deperds the good appearance of a boiled dinner. When you have skimmed it well, put in a little cold water, which will throw up the rest of it. If left alone it soon boils down and sticks to the meat, which, instead of looking white and healthful, will have a coarse and uninviting appearance.

Many cooks put in milk to make what they boil look white, but this does more harm than good; others wrap the meat in a cloth; but if it is well skimmed it will have a much more delicate appearup.

Put the meat into cold water in the proportion of about a quart to every pound of meat; it should remain covered during the whole process of boiling, but only just so. Water beyond what is absolutely necessary renders the meat less savory and weakens the broth.

The water should be gradually heated according to the thickness, etc., of the article boiled; for instance, a leg of mutton of ten pounds' weight should be placed over a moderate fire, which will gradually heat the water without causing it to boil, for about forty minutes. If the water boils shrink up as if it were scorched. Reckon the much sooner, the meat will be hardened, and time from its first coming to a boil; the slower it the plumper, and whiter it will be. For those who choose their food thoroughly found too much for gentle simmering by the side cooked , twenty minutes to a pound will not be of the fire. Fresh killed meat will take much longer time boiling than that which has been kept till what the butchers call ripe; if it be fresh killed and ever so gently. The size of the boiling pots it will be tough and hard if stewed ever SO long, tough and hard if stewed ever so long, should be adapted to what they are to contain; in small families we recommend block-tin saucethe covers fit close, otherwise the introduction of pans, etc., as lightest and safest, taking care that smoke may be the means of giving the meat a bad taste. Beef and mutton a little underdone is not able and truly unwholesome, if not thoroughly a great fault, but lamb, pork, and veal are uneatlamb, pork, and veal are uneatboiled. Take care of the liquor in which poultry herbs, etc., will convert it into a nourishing soup. or meat has been boiled, as an addition of peas , To Bake Meats, etc.

This is one of the cheapest and most convenient