Culinary jottings

For the ^^ pot-au-feu' it is necessary to put the meat and salt into cold water first, — alone : to watch it come slowly to the boil, skimming the scum that rises very carefully : when the surface is clear, and the water boiling, to add the vegetables, &c. ; to let it boil till the vegetables are done, to remove them, and then to let the contents of your pot simmer for three or foui' hours. But for a piece of boiled beef, a fowl, leg of mutton, or whatever it may be, destined for the dinner table, you must put the meat, tied neatly in the shape required with twine, into hot water to begin with. Like the pot-au-feu it should be watched, and skimmed, and the salt, and flavonring vegetables, and herbs, added when the scum has been removed. The water, let me observe, must not be hoiling, it should be as hot as you can bear to touch, and the early stage of coming to the actual boil should be retarded as much as possible. Boiled meat at the English dinner table is often spoiled by being " galloped," as cooks say, that is, done too fast. Meat thus maltreated cannot fail to be tough. You must simmer your hump, or your ham, just as carefully as you would the meat of a pot-au-feu. When once boiling-point has been attained, ease off the fire a little, and endeavour to obtain a uniform heat below the pot that will just keep its surface, as it were, alive. An occasional bubble, is what you want, with gentle motion, the water muttering to you, not jabbering and fussing, as it does when boiling. If you follow this process, you will never have to send a boiled leg of mutton away from the table because of its being too underdone inside to be fit to eat. Remember that the liquor in which a joint has been boiled is weak stock. If reduced by being simmered with the lid of the cooking vessel removed, it can be turned to account in many ways, especially for the enrichment of white sauce. The common error made by cooks in England, just as much as by our Ramasamy, consists in their keeping up the high pressure too long, whereby the outside of the joint is rapidly done, and the inside scarcely cooked at all. The joint looks done, and is consequently sent up with the unsatisfactory result which I have pointed out. Simmering a joint of meat is undoubtedly a troublesome process in India. The cook's attention must be kept up throughout the work. He cannot lift the pot to the hob, or change its position on the range, as the English cook can so easily do. He must be ever watchful about his fire, and guard against there being too much, or too little firewood under his vessels. In fact, I doubt whether it is possible for Ramasamy to conduct the simmering process satisfactorily with only the common appliances of the cookroom at his command. Those who possess ranges, or cooking stoves, should count themselves especially fortunate. Their cooks can regulate the heat they want at will. But, with a common cookroom fireplace, the difficulty of maintaining the unvarying gentle heat so highly essential, appears to me to be very great. During the boiling of a joint, the water should, at all times, be kept so as to cover it. If there be any loss by evaporation, it should be made good at once by the addition of hot water.