href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@35646@[email protected]#MUTTON" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">MUTTON,

COOKING.

The science and art of cooking may be divided into ten principal parts; the rest is all fancy. These ten parts are: Baking, Boiling, Broiling, Frying, Mixing, Roasting, Sautéing, Seasoning, Simmering, and Stewing.

Tasting is an adjunct to all.

Baking.—In baking, see that the furnace or oven be properly heated; some dishes require more heat than others. Look at the object in process of baking from time to time, and especially at the beginning, turn it round if necessary, in case it be heated more on one side than on the other, to prevent burning.

In baking meat and fish, besides keeping the bottom of the pan covered with broth or water, place a piece of buttered paper over the object in the pan; it not only prevents it from burning, but acts as a self-basting operation, and keeps the top moist and juicy.

If the top of cakes bake faster than the rest, place a piece of paper on it.

In most of our receipts, we give the degree of heat necessary to bake the different objects; it will, no doubt, be found valuable information.

Boiling.—This is the most abused branch in cooking; we know that many good-meaning housewives and professional cooks boil things that ought to be prepared otherwise, with a view to economy; but a great many do it through laziness. Boiling requires as much care as any other branch, but they do not think so, and therefore indulge in it.

Another abuse is to boil fast instead of slowly. Set a small ocean of water on a brisk fire and boil something in it as fast as you can, you make much steam but do not cook faster; the degree of heat being the same as if you were boiling slowly.

If the object you boil, and especially boil fast, contains any flavor, you evaporate it, and cannot bring it back.

Many things are spoiled or partly destroyed by boiling, such as meat, coffee, etc.

Water that has been boiled is inferior for cooking purposes, its gases and alkali being evaporated.

Broiling.—Whatever you broil, grease the bars of the gridiron first.

Broiling and roasting is the same thing; the object in process of cooking by either must be exposed to the heat on one side, and the other side to the air.

Bear in mind that no one can broil or roast in an oven, whatever be its construction, its process of heating, or its kind of heat. An object cooked in an oven is baked.

It is better to broil before than over the fire. In broiling before the fire, all the juice can be saved.

In broiling by gas, there is a great advantage. The meat is placed under the heat, and as the heat draws the juice of the meat, the consequence is, that the juice being attracted upward, it is retained in the meat.

A gas broiler is a square, flat drum, perforated on one side and placed over a frame.

Broiling on live coals or on cinders without a gridiron is certainly not better than with one, as believed by many; on the contrary, besides not being very clean, it burns or chars part of the meat.

That belief comes from the fact that when they partook of meat prepared that way, it was with a sauce that generally accompanies hunters, fishermen, etc.,—hunger—the most savory of all savory sauces.

Frying.—That part of cooking is not as difficult as it is generally believed, and properly fried objects are good and do not taste greasy.

To fry requires care, and nothing fried will taste greasy if it has been dropped in fat properly heated and in enough of it to immerse the object.

When an object tastes greasy, it is not because it has been fried in grease, but because there was not enough of it, or because it was not properly heated; for, if heated enough it closes the pores of the object and carbonizes the exterior, so that it cannot absorb any.

Directions for Frying.—Prepare what you intend to fry according to the directions given in the different receipts.

Have fat, lard, or oil in a pan, enough to immerse the object or objects intended to be fried.

When the fat is hot enough (see below), place the object in a kind of wire basket made for that purpose, which drop in the fat and take off when the object is fried. It is handy, and there is no danger of breaking the object in taking it off.

There are objects that require to be stirred or turned over while frying.

Every time you fry any thing, take the fat from the fire, let it stand in a cool place for about five minutes, then turn it gently into a stone jar or pot through a strainer; let cool and put away. In turning the fat, lard, or oil into the jar, pour so that the dregs will be kept in the pan.

To ascertain with accuracy when the fat, lard, or oil is hot enough to lay the things in the pan, dip a fork in cold water, the prongs only; so as to retain but one or two drops of water, which drops you let fall in the fat, and if it crackles, it is hot enough.

Another way is, when jets of smoke come out of the fat.

There are objects that require more heat than others, some that are more sightly when brown, and others when of a pale-yellow hue.

If the object