Gancel's culinary encyclopedia of modern cooking

Stewing is a wholesome and excellent and economical mode of cooking. Very little fuel is used for it, and meat so prepared is both digestible and delicious. But “boiling” is not “stewing;” and we warn our readers that all we have said in praise of it may be reversed if they let the stewing pan do more than simmer very gently. Stewing is best done over a regular stove; but when a cook can command only an old-fashioned kitchen range she must place her stew- — 468 — pan on trivets high above the fire, and constantly watch it and move it nearer to, or further from the fire. Stewing must of course always be done over slow fire and the stewpan lid should shut quite closely. It should be kept at a gentle simmer, without letting it boil, and it must stew for several hours, according to the weight of the meat, which is not to be considered done until it is quite tender. Sometimes the cook stews the meat in the earthen pot (the mode once Used in southern France), this is very good, placed in a Stew-pan full of water, and thus extracts, the pure gravy unmixed with water. We have, also, a recipe for stewing meat and vegetables together, without water being put in the earthen pot with them, thus making an excellent soup, from the union of the pieces of the meat or chicken and the water contained in the vegetables. Call it French Pot-au-feu, Gabure, etc. HOW TO SAUTE Saute, a French term — (Cooked quickly over a sharp fire). To “saute” anything means to dress it quickly, in a small pan, with a “very little” butter, oil, lard, or dripping, doing one side at a time. Two spoonfuls of oil will be enough to “saute” a small chicken in. The art of saute-ing well consists of doing it quickly, to keep the gravy and succulence in the meat. It is an economical mode of dressing small things of every kind of food. It is, you see, very different from frying, which is really boiling in hot fat, and which requires far greater quantity of the butter, oil, etc., for its performance. Carved Chicken Sauté. Take one or two fine spring chickens, and after plucking and drawing them, cut them in pieces; take off the wing and leg on one side; then the wing and leg on the other. Take off the breast and cut it in halves (cross-wise, not length-wise); cut the back also in three parts. Cut off the neck, separate the pinions from the wing. Divide the thigh from the drumstick, scald the feet and take off the skin. Cut the nails of the feet off, clean the head and eyes off, cut off the beak. Season: Put some very good butter or olive oil in a frying pan, Keep turning until well browned, when cooked add garnishings you desire. Do not let cook one or two minutes longer in the sauce, as it becomes hard. Time: fifteen minutes. — 469 — STEAMING Steaming is an admirable mode of dressing corned beef, hams, bacon, etc. It preserves the flavor in them and quite saves waste. Anyone who has once eaten steamed bacon, etc., will never again, we think, order it to be boiled, so tender and succulent will it be found. In it the meat or poultry is cooked without being touched by either water or steam. It appears to us1 to be a cheap and easy mode of braising or boiling in a new form.