The spirit of cookery

The Cooking of Eggs. — Hitherto, perhaps, no product of the kitchen prepared by boiling was more uncertain than that called soft-boiled eggs. These agreeable adjuvants of the breakfast and tea table produced frequent disappointments to either those who liked them more or to those who liked them less done. Time-keepers, sand-glasses, knack, and experience were alike frequently defeated, until now at last an apparatus has been invented which will cook eggs to a desirable degree, and does not allow them to be over- * Cf. Kitchiner, loc. cit., p. 71, and p. 73, the illustration of the two u.utton chops quoted below. done. This apparatus, called Eoyle’s Egg-cooker, Whitfield’s patent, consists of two parts : an upper one, with space for a number of eggs and the hot water to cook them ; and a lower one, for the reception of the water which runs off the eggs through a small aperture in the bottom of the egg-containing vessel. Place the eggs in the upper vessel, fill it with boiling water, and cover it up ; the eggs will become beautifully cooked throughout their substance while the water is around them and running away, and by the time they are so cooked all the water will have escaped into the lower vessel, and it will be impossible for the eggs to become overdone, while being kept hot all the same. This very useful apparatus proves, moreover, like the Norwegian apparatus, that cooking can be effected at temperatures far below the boiling-point of water, and its inventor has properly termed it, not an egg-boiler, but an egg-cooker. Kitchiner’s Tioo Mutton Chops. — Two mutton chops were covered with water ; one was boiled at a gallop, the other was simmered very gently for three-quarters of an hour. The chop which was slowly simmered was decidedly superior to that which was boiled ; it was much tenderer, more juicy, and much higher flavoured. The liquor which had boiled fast was in like proportion more savoury, and when cold had much more fat on its surface. Quick boiling extracts more of the juices, and, in fact, expels them by the contraction which boiling heat engenders in the meatfibre. White of egg, like meat, may be perfectly cooked and tender, but by reheating to boiling be made hard ; on the other hand, meat and eggs may be heated to the same temperature as that which they reached in the first cooking without diminution of their tender and juicy qualities. The knowledge and observance of this law is of the utmost importance to a cook, as in ordinary life many parts of boiled or roast meat have to be hotted, and, if properly done, will always be acceptable, while cooked moat made hard by hotting to the boiling-point of the same is very objectionable, and rather indigestible. Therefore, meat to be hotted should not be placed over the fire, but, like the eggs in the egg-cooker, be hotted by having the sauce, and this boiling hot, poured over it in a previously well-warmed vessel. A saucepan standing in a water-bath is the most suitable receptacle.