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Sect. 4. Braising

109. Braising is only a very elaborate method of baking or broiling, which has been introduced from France into this country of late years. It is, in fact, an air-tight oven, placed on a stove, with a braising-iron on the top, so that the heat descends as well as ascends, and yet it is so graduated that it does not cause much of the steam to escape. Although considered a French novelty, it differs in no respect from the old English "jugging," in which a hare is placed in a jar, covered over closely, and then deposited in an oven, by which the same kind of heat is communicated; and I fully believe there is no cook who could tell a braised turkey done in the most artistic way, from another deposited in a braising-pan and then placed in an oven at the required temperature. All the old receipts for stewing in covered pans in the oven depend upon the same principle; that is, that the article to be stewed should nearly fill the dish or jar, and should in that state, with very little but its own juice, be submitted to a low dry heat, with closed doors, to obviate the loss by evaporation. A braising-pan is certainly a most convenient mode of carrying out the process, either with or without the oven, but it is by no means essential to it. How to cook fish CHAP. VII.-ON THE COOKING OF FISH BY BOILING, FRYING, &c.