FoodNetArchive

The "A1" cookery book

1901

Page 24

Presented as published in 1901. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
To Bake Joints. — With the kitchen ranges now in vogue it is much more usual to bake meat than to roast it. For this pur- pose a very ingenious baking tin is sold, which cooks the meat without any attention on the part of the cook ; and as full instruc- tions about how to use it are sold with the baking tin, there is no need to repeat them here. To bake meat without the help of this new invention it is usual to have a hot-water tin on which the meat-stand is placed. In a corner of the tray there is a hole for the steam to escape. There must be enough water to come nearly up to the hole. The meat must be put on a stand, whether there is a hot-water tin or not, to keep it from getting sodden by the dripping. The oven must be made quite hot ; if you MEAT. 3' have a thermometer it should stand at 240° Fahr. Put the meat on the stand after it has been trimmed and skewered and bound into a good shape, and dredged with flour and pepper ; let the fat side be uppermost. Keep the ventilator of the oven closed for five minutes till the surface of the meat is hardened to keep in the juices, but then it must be opened or the meat will be spoilt. Baste the meat well every quarter of an hour. Allow twenty minutes to every pound of meat. When the meat is half cooked it can be turned over if it is a very thick joint. Half an hour before the joint is ready to take up sprinkle a little salt and flour over it and baste it well. After this it should not be basted again before it is served, or it will taste greasy. For the gravy pour off the dripping and put about half a pint of boiling water into the tin, stirring and scraping those parts which have become hard and dry, dredge in a very little flour and salt, and put the tin on the range to boil, then strain it and pour it into the dish. Cold Meat Cookery. — I have only given a few recipes for using up cold meat, and they are all good if the seasoning is properly attended to, and the gravy and other details are daintily prepared, but all depends upon these. The meat should never be really cooked again, only thoroughly warmed through. It is good housekeeping to have joints that are just the right size for your household, so that there should be as little as possible left to cook up. It is better to make dainty salads and sometimes serve a joint cold than have it cooked up. Curry and beef olives and many other dishes are more nourish- ing and much more tasty made of fresh meat than cooked meat, and it is often possible to cut something off the joint before it is roasted that can be used to make a second dinner. Some people dislike cold meat, and prefer delicate cooked-up trifles, and when they do the utmost care must be taken in the prepara- tion of them, that they may be good to look at as well as agreeable to the taste. To Boil Meat.— It has already been explained that when the 32 MEAT.