Experimental cookery

Cooking o£ meat in milk. Ham is often baked in milk. Sometimes pork chops are floured, seared in fat, and then baked in milk. Other meats and fish are sometimes baked or cooked in milk. Often curdling of the milk occurs, and the appearance of the meat, owing to adherence of curds of milk, is not attractive. Thus it is desirable to prevent curdling. Among the causes of curdling are the temperature at w^hich the meat is cooked, the salt content of the food cooked in the milk, the manner in vrhich the milk is added to the meat, and the reaction of the milk. The higher the temperature at vs^hich the meat is cooked the greater the tendency to curdle. Larger curds are also formed at higher tempera- tures. The temperature to vrhich milk must be heated to bring about curd- ling is high, so this cooking temperature alone is not sufficient to bring about the coagulation. Even when the meat is cooked in an oven at a high temperature, the liquid portion does not reach a higher temperature than boiling. It is possible that the acidity is increased during cooking, but the resulting />H of the meat-milk broth is changed very little from that of the original milk or from that of the meat broth when the meat is cooked in water. Thus it seems that the heating and the acidity developed during cooking do not alone bring about coagulation. The salt content of the food cooked in the milk probably influences the coagulation, and this combined with the heating, the temperature of heat- ing, the acidity developed, and the altering of the casein by heat are suf- ficient to cause curdling. Sodium chloride has some effect, for curdling is more likely to occur when the meat cooked in the milk is a cured or salted one than when fresh meat is used. Curdling may be prevented by the addition of soda, about 1/16 teaspoon per cup of milk. From this it appears that the reaction has some part in the coagulation. The soda may combine with other salts that tend to bring about coagulation or the coagulation may be prevented by the slightly alkaline reaction. A slightly alkaline reaction also prevents coagulation by rennin and by fermentation. If a portion of the milk is added to the meat when cooking is first started and the rest of the cold milk added gradually to the meat during the cooking period, curdling is less likely to occur. The addition of acid foods, such as prepared mustard, which may contain vinegar, or apples and pears to be baked with the meat, would tend to increase the tendency to curdle. Evaporated milk has less tendency to curdle than fresh milk, which may be due to the previous heating. Cooking of vegetables in milk. Milk usually does not curdle when cabbage, chard, spinach, or cauliflower is cooked in it. But it is likely to curdle when asparagus, string beans, peas, and carrots are cooked in it. Asparagus usually curdles the milk after a few minutes of cooking. There are several factors that may aid in bringing about coagulation of the milk. The slight acidity of some vegetables combined with the heating of the milk may tend to bring about coagulation, but the acidity is not usually 308 MILK AND CHEESE