FoodNet

English and French cookery

1890

Page 22 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1890. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Among the better kinds of stock -pot is the porcelain-lined. It is more easily cleaned, and is otherwise superior both to earthenware and cast-iron. Thus provided, the thrifty housewife utilises every morsel of flesh and bone, and every atom of nutritive food, solid or liquid ; and with herbs and vegetables to the fore, and even the liquor in which vegetables have been boiled, with condiments and bread, etc., dishes up daily, one by one, a large variety of very cheap, thoroughly appetising and wholesome soups, making the more costly boiled or roasted solids last very much longer, and at the same time benefiting the health of her family. Into the digester let every scrap of bone or gristle or odd ends of animal food be put. In all bones there is a nutritive substance of the highest value, but it wants drawing out ; this the digester patiently does. Every morning, therefore, let the bones and scraps be collected together : let the housewife unscrew the lid of her patient friend, remove the bleached bones already sucked dry, and add those which she has been keeping, the pot being well filled always with liquor. No seasoning or salt should ever be put into the digester, and all scraps of fat should be kept out. But the shank bones of the legs of mutton, that the butcher will weigh in, and all similar make-weights, may be utilised. Not a bone should ever find its way to the rag and bone shop until it has passed through the stock-pot. In some places meat is to be bought at a penny or even twopence a pound less than at others, if bone and certain strippings are weighed in. With a digester on the hob at home, these are the places to deal at. The penny or twopence a pound saved becomes doubled, and the fresh uncooked bones give a marvellous stimulant to the contents of the pot. Sometimes on a Saturday night wholesome scraps and bones may be had very cheaply. ‘ The stock-pot of the Continent,’ says Sir Henry Thompson, 1 has another use beside that of preparing a basis for soup. Thus when a boiled fowl is required, it is a common practice to conduct the process in the stock or simmering pot. Any nutritive matter, however small, which might have been lost in the water used for ordinary boiling, is saved for the soup, while SOUPS AND SAUCES. 39 the fowl boiled in the stock will certainly be preferred to one which has been boiled in water. And so with many other articles; for example, a small and well-cleaned ham may be cooked — and this is an affair of several hours — in a capacious stock-pot, with advantage equally to the soup and the ham,’ provided, of course, that the ham has already been in soak about 24 hours, for removing super- fluous salt. The fire for a stock-pot should be kept at a uniform degree of heat, not be too hot. The bones put into it should be broken and freed from meat ; the water is cold when the materials are first placed in it, and then a little salt is added. When boiling com- mences, and the scum rises, it should be cleared away, and this boiling should be repeated thrice. Then add the vegetables to the bones and meatStock-Pot Soup, and when the boiling point is reached again the pot is put aside on the hob to simmer slowly and continuously. ‘ Care should be taken,’ says Jules Gouffe, ‘ not to salt the broth too highly at first, as it always becomes more salt on being warmed up tRe second day, and still more so when reduced to a sauce.