FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 48

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Of heavier apparatus is further required a large, mortar of stone, granite, or marble, or of iron, on a cylindrical 2^icce of a tree, partially imbedded in the wood, and a hox-wood pestle for use with the mortar ; it serves for pounding meat and other materials tor farces and 2^urdes. There is also required a chopping -hloclc, being a cylindrical section of a tree with three inserted legs, for chopping and dressing meat. The chopper and dressing-knives should be suspended close to the chopping-block. Of lighter movable ap>paratus the kitchen requires three iron galvanized spoons of different sizes, and a number of ivooden spoons. It is advisable to have a dozen of these, as they are much used for stirring, and must not be used except after having been washed and dried. A hasting-ladle is indispensable in the management of roasts, and although some people hold basting in pretended abhorrence, the flavour of the roast and its gravy depends so much upon proper basting that we hold a j)roper ladle for its per- formance to be a necessary instrument. A fish-slice is needed to dress and fllet the larger kinds of fish. A set of sheiocrs, to be kept in a cylindrical tin box, is requisite for the proper dressing and trussing of joints, fowls and game, so as to keep the various parts in proximity to each other, and prevent extremities from getting dry or burnt. The skewers for the larger joints, such as roast beef, or lamb, or boned roll of beef, are mostly supplied by the butcher. These are made of wood. A set of larding needles is an essential in an elegant kitchen. The needles must be of several sizes to be able to receive and carry, the one thicker, the other thinner lardoons or bacon-strips. These needles, like the skewers, should be kept in a cylindrical tin box. KirCHEN REQUISITES AND CULINARY AXIOMS 57 The cook should further have suspended near the chopping- block a chopper, a meat-smv, a broad chisel measuring two inches along the cutting edge, and a mallet. With these instruments the bones of any joints can be elegantly ad- justed, and the task of carving much facilitated. Three culinary knives, of different sizes, for the dressing of meat ; a mincing-knife, being half knife, half chopper, but light and sharp ; a rocking -knife, a crescent-shaped tool used to mince with its convex edge, without noise, meat as well as vegetables, and a square mincing-hoard of thick, hard wood, complete the outfit having reference to the treatment of the flesh of animals. For the production of dishes in which flour is used we require two plcdn pudding motolds, for use in hot water ; a cake-mould, for baking in the oven ; two p>lain border moulds ; a jagger, with revolving disks ; a set of