Important: Safety Warning
This page gives advice for salvaging or disguising food that has begun to spoil. Spoiled food can carry dangerous bacteria and toxins that no washing, soaking, or seasoning removes; it should be discarded.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Pot au Feu
INGREDIENTS for soup for 6 persons.-1½ lb. of lean beef, lb. of bones, 3 quarts of water, 1 oz. of salt, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 2 leeks, a head of celery, 2 or 3 cloves. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 6d. water Bone the meat and tie it up with string, chop the bones and put them at the bottom of the saucepan, and over them the meat.
Pour in the water and add the salt, and let boil with the lid of the saucepan leaving an inch wide opening. As soon as the scum rises add 1/2 pint of cold water, and take off the scum with a skimmer. Repeat this, boiling and skimming twice after the first time, and after this the broth should be perfectly clear. Wipe the edges of the stewpan carefully and add the vegetables, which will stop the boiling. As soon as it boils up again, draw the pan aside, so that only part of it is over the fire. Place cinders on the fire to subdue the heat, which should be regular and gentle for 3 hours, during which the broth should simmer.
Take out the meat and bones, take off all fat, and pour into the tureen, when, if more salt be necessary, it should be added.
TIME.-3 hours to simmer.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Poulet aux Cressons. INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons. -A fowl, a large bunch of water-cresses, 3 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, 1/4 pint of gravy. AVERAGE COST, 3s.
Truss and roast a fowl by recipe, taking care that it is nicely frothed and brown.
Wash and dry the wa water-cresses, pick them nicely and arrange them in a flat layer on a dish. Sprinkle over a little salt and the above proportion of vinegar; place over these the fowl, and pour over it the gravy.
A little gravy should be served in a tureen. When not liked, the vinegar may be omitted.
POULTRY AND GAME.
TIME.-From 1/2 to 1 hour, according to size.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Poulet à la Marengo. - INGREDIENTS for dish for 5 persons.-1 large fowl, 4 tablespoonfuls of salad oil, 1 tablespoonful of flour, 1 pint of stock or water, about 28 mushroom-buttons, salt and pepper to the taste, 1 teaspoonful of powdered sugar, a very small piece of garlic. AVERAGE COST, 3s. 6d.
Cut the fowl into 8 or 10 pieces, put them with the oil into a stewpan, and brown them over a moderate fire; dredge in the above proportion of flour; when that 'is brown, pour in the stock or water, let it simmer very slowly for rather more than 1/24 an hour, and skim off the fat as it rises to the top; add the mushrooms, season with pepper, salt, garlic and sugar; take out the fowl, which arrange pyramidically on a dish, with the inferior joints at the bottom. Reduce the sauce by boiling it quickly over the fire, keeping it stirred until sufficiently thick to adhere to the back of the spoon; pour over the fowl, and serve.
TIME.-Altogether, 50 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Poultry and Game. There are about thirty different kinds of birds used as food in Great Britain, but only three animals that come under this class, namely the hare, the rabbit and the deer. flesh of both hare and rabbit approaches very nearly to the texture and constituents of poultry, but venison is more like that of well-seasoned mutton.
The The chief characteristic of the flesh of fowls is the almost total absence of fat, and when it does exist, it renders digestion more difficult. The flesh of game appears to be the only kind of animal food that posed, or, as it is usually termed, "high." can be eaten with impunity when decom- As it would not be possible to give an analysis of the constituent parts of the many kinds of poultry and game, we confine ourselves to that of the one more in request than any other.
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF 1 LB. OF FOWL.
Water Albumenoids Fat...
Mineral Matter oz. grs.
Traces Turkey.
Pheasant.
Rabbit.
Woodcock.
Wild Duck.
Partridge.
Larks.
Hare.
A Quails.
Snipe.
Golden Plover.
Widgeon.
Duck.
Fowl.
Teal.
Blackcock.
Pigeons Ptarmigan.
Grouse.
Goose.
Poultry and Game.
POUND CAKE.
The first and fullest entry here is the classic French household broth: lean beef and bones drawn slowly in water with root vegetables. The method is entirely sound; only the fire management needs translating.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: keep it below a boil once skimmed -- The recipe brings the pot to the boil to raise the scum, but after the skimming is done it should sit at a bare shiver, roughly 180-190F, with the surface barely trembling. A hard boil emulsifies fat and fine protein into the liquid and clouds the broth, which straining alone will not fully undo.
- Instead of drawing the pan asideDirections about placing cinders on the fire and pulling the pan half off the heat are about taming a coal range. On gas or induction, use the lowest setting with a diffuser, or hold the pot in a low oven, around 300F, which many cooks find steadier than a burner.
- The inch-wide gap in the lidThis is deliberate, not carelessness. The recipe calls for it while the pot comes to the boil; it lets steam escape, keeps the pot from boiling over, and lets the broth reduce a little.
- Cold water for the scumAdding a half pint of cold water checks the boil and brings coagulated protein to the surface in a raft that lifts off cleanly. Repeating it three times, as directed, is worth doing; it is a large part of why the finished broth comes out clear.
- SaltAn ounce of salt is a little over 1½ level tablespoons of table salt for three quarts, more than most modern palates want. Start with half, and follow the recipe's own advice to correct at the end.
- The meat is a second dishThe boiled beef, sliced and served with coarse salt, mustard and cornichons, is the traditional partner to the broth. Tying it with string keeps it in one piece for carving, so do not skip that step.
- BonesThe stated weight of bones has not survived legibly in this copy. For 1.5 lb of lean beef, about 1 lb of marrow and knuckle bones gives the right body without making the broth gluey.
- Yield and keepingSix servings of broth, plus the boiled beef. Chill overnight and the last of the fat lifts off as a solid cap, leaving a cleaner soup than skimming alone will give.
Pot-au-feu means simply "pot on the fire," and it names both the vessel and the meal: a single pot of beef and root vegetables kept at a murmur all day on the hearth, the broth eaten first and the meat after. It was the standard Sunday dinner of French households across classes, and Beeton's version is a faithful English rendering of the method as French cooks taught it, down to the insistence on repeated skimming and a gentle, regular heat. Its inclusion in an English household manual reflects the long nineteenth-century deference to French kitchen technique, particularly for stocks and soups; the recipe gives the cost as 1s 6d for six people, one pot producing both a soup course and a joint of boiled beef.