Gancel's culinary encyclopedia of modern cooking

The cook should prepare the fire some little time before he puts the meat down. The grate should be left out sufficiently wide to take in the whole size of the joint, with a margin to spare on each side, and the fire should be “so” good so as not to require making up during the time the joint is roasting. It should be sufficiently large to be of an — 460 7- equal strength all the time the meat is dressing, aided by a large coal put on the top of it occasionally. A great deal of the success in roasting will depend on the heat and goodness of the fire. Note — The best way of roasting any meat is on a spit, but that mode is quite forgotten these days.- Every house uses the coal, gas or electric oven. Place the meat on the roast pan in a hot oven and baste frequently with the butter, lard of grease, according to your like. After it is cooked and has taken brown color, remove the grease and moisten with stock or water. When it is half done move it gradually nearer to the fire for it to be well browned. If the meat were to be put close to the fire at first it would dry up and the outside, would be dressed before the heat penetrated the mass; the juice being thus shut in, the joint would be under dressed. Some persons prefer meat roasted very slowly. That method is expensive because it requires a large fire to be kept up for a length of time, and also, unless done by a cook who understands his business well, and who makes a fire for it, the meat is apt to get sodden. We need scarcely say that the meat screen should be placed behind it from the first of its being put down. Sometimes the oven is too hot, cover the meat with a piece of paper, baste the meat very frequently, for the more it is basted the better it will taste. When it is nearly done, the paper over it should be removed and the joint lightly dredged with flour, in order to give it a savory brown appearance called frothing. Sprinkle a very little salt on it also, but not till it is just ready to be dished up, as salt draws out the gravy. The usual time allowed for roasting is a quarter of an hour of twenty minutes, according as it is desired rare or well done, for each pound of meat. But the rule does not always answer. Meat freshly killed takes longer to roast than when it has been kept long; and in warm weather it takes less time than in cold. Brown meat requires less time than white meat does. In frosty weather it is better to lay the joint before the fire to thaw before it is put on the spit or in the oven, as, if frozen, it will be impossible to calculate the time required for dressing it, and, in fact, it will never be dressed through. The cook should always be careful of the spit or the oven, and also of the fork used for turning — 461 — the roast meat, so as to avoid disfiguring it by running the spit through the prime parts. Spits are the best for large kitchens; for small families, the range or gas oven, Dutch oven or the bottle-jack in a tinned screen does very well, or better still, the improved spring-jack and roaster.