The spirit of cookery

prepare a joint of meat for enjoyment at home with his family. In general, roasting must be admitted to yield results superior to those of baking, but some joints when baked so nearly approach to the same when roasted, that they may be eaten as roasts with satisfaction. Such are legs and loins of pork, legs of mutton, fillets of veal, and many others. The meat should be good, and rather inclined to be fat. Very lean meat is unsuitable for baking, as it starts from the bone and shrivels up in a remarkable manner. Besides the joints mentioned, the following dishes may be particularly recommended for baking. They are protected from the drying which threatens lean meat by coverings of oiled or greased (buttered) paper, or by paste, and then their cooking becomes equivalent to braising. A sucking pig, when sent to the baker prepared for baking, should have its ears and tail covered with buttered paper properly fastened on, and a bit of butter tied up in a piece of linen to baste the back with, otherwise it will be apt to blister. A goose prepared in the same manner as for roasting should be placed on a stand, so that when it is half done it may be turned with its lower side upwards. A duck should be similarly treated. A buttock of beef, having been in salt for about a week, should be washed and put into a brown earthen pan with a pint of water or broth. Cover the pan tightly over with two or three thicknesses of cap or foolscap paper — never cover anything that is to be baked with broton paper, the pitch and tar in which will give to the meat a smoky bad taste — and give it four or five hours’ baking in a moderately heated oven. A ham, properly soaked, as directed below, may be covered with a crust of paste all over, and baked in a moderately heated oven ; it is as full of gravy and of as fine a flavour as a boiled one. The following fish can also be baked : Small cod, haddock, or mackerel, with a dust of flour and a basting of butter over them; eels, when large and stuffed; herrings in a brown pan with vinegar and a little spice, and tied over with paper. A hare, prepared as for roasting, basted with butter repeatedly, and placed in a pan with a little milk, will become nicely done. It may also be cut up and placed in a vessel and jugged. Legs and shins of beef, ox-cheeks, etc., garnished with onions, turnips, etc., take about four hours to cook ; they are then allowed to get cool to have the fat skimmed off, after which they are warmed again and served. Baking in the small ovens of kitchens is not so successful as that in the baker’s oven. This arises in most cases from the faulty construction of the ovens, which, as we have already shown above, are mainly heated from the side, and have either no bottom heat at all or not enough of it. Further, most of these ovens are not ventilated, so that the fat which spirts on hot parts of the oven or dish, on being volatilized, taints the meat with its burnt grease taste, due to acroleine. Some cooks do not take sufficient care to clean, and keep clean, the oven, which is not rarely littered with charcoal, particularly that formed by the burning of overflowing fruit-juice from fruit-pies. On this particular subject masters and mistresses of private houses cannot bestow too much attention.