The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c

How rarely this is the case housekeepers know to their cost. It is indeed very rare. I will take the case of a dinner party at which mutton cutlets are to be served as an entree after fish and soup. Have the cutlets ready for cooking, the outside being thoroughly dry. Have over the fire plenty of smoking-hot lard. My own impression as to the temperature is that it should be about 350“. Cutlets also can be fried in oil. Cooks do not realise how very much greater the heat of fat should be than the_ temperature of boiling water. The kind of fat used is immaterial. It may be good beef dripping, butter, lard, or oil, and very little difference is there between them. One essential is that they should be properly heated. Sir Henry Thompson, in his book on food, states that the temperature should be 500°. I feel considerable difficulty in differing from so very high an authority on a matter of science, but I do think this heat somewhat excessive. We will suppose the cutlets are now prepared. The cook should be requested to wait until she sees the dirty fish plates making their appearance, showing that the fish course has been eaten. Then take the cutlets, place them in a wire basket; and plunge them into the fat heated to the degree I have mentioned — namely, from 350° upwards. It would probably astonish a great many “ good plain cooks ” to be told that thirty seconds is sufficient to cook the cutlets. Should they have been cut as thin as I have mentioned, and should the fat be heated to the degree named, this will be sufficient — a little over thirty seconds will cook the cutlets. When done they should be a rich, delicate brown colour, and the insand when cut will be red and very hot. In the meantime the macedoines must be prepared. I would remind cooks that, as perhaps a minute or two will elapse between the time when the cutlets are taken from the fat and handed round in the dining-room, the cooldng process of the meat continues for a considerable period after the cutlets have been taken outof the fat. We all know that if an egg, which consists of albumen, is cracked the instant it is taken from the saucepan, the white will be slightly fluid. But if we allow the egg to remain three or four minutes before it is opened it will be, comparatively speaking, hard. The simple reason is that the cooking process goes on in the egg, which has only been exposed to a temperature of 212°, whereas the cutlets have been exposed to a temperature of nearly 400°, consequently when the cutlet is taken out of the fat the meat inside still continues to feel the effect of the heat, which causes the cooking to go on in all directions equally. It is quite possible that were you to take the cutlet out of the fat, throw it on to a plate, and cut it open, it would be blue in the middle. Wait two minutes and the cutlet will cease to be blue. The tin of macedoines should be warmed-up in a small enamelled saucepan. The macedoines may be first heated in the tin itself, and the liquor strained off, or the macedoines themselves turned into a saucepan. Then a good spoonful of white sauce should be added to them, or, still better, sauce supreme. When good white sauce cannot be obtained add a good-sized piece of butter. Toss the macedoines lightly together, and add a little better than a teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley.