FoodNet

The housekeeper's companion

1883

Page 98 · 3 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Beef. — To pickle for drying or boiling, thoroughly rub salt into it, and let it remain twenty-four hours to draw off the blood; after which drain and pack as desired; have ready a pickle prepared as follows: For every one hundred pounds of beef, seven pounds of salt, one ounce of saltpetre, one quart of molasses, eight gallons of soft water; boil and skim well; when cold pour it over the beef. Pieces designed for drying should be taken out in two weeks, and soaked over night, to take the salt from the outside. Remains of Roast Beef. — Take off with a sharp knife all the meat from the bones, chop it fine, take cold gravy without the fat, put it in the spider to heat; if you have not this, some of the water in which the bones were boiled; when it boils up, sprinkle in salt and put in the minced meat; cover it and let it stand upon the fire long enough to heat it thoroughly, then stir in a small piece of butter, toast bread, and lay in a dish; put the meat over it; serve hot. Boiling Meat. — There is all the difference in the world between boiling meat which is to be eaten, and meat whose juices are to be extracted in the form of soup. If the meat is required as nourishment, of course you want the juices kept in. To do this, it is necessary to plunge it into boiling water, which will cause thQ albumen in the meat lo coagulate suddenly, 146 HOUSEHOLD. and act as a plug or stopper to all the tubes of the meat, so that the nourishment will be tightly kept in. The temperature of the water should be kept at boiling point for five minutes, and then as much cold water must be added as will reduce the temperature to one hundred and sixty-five degrees. Now if the hot water, in which the meat is being cooked, is kept at this temperature for some hours, we have all the conditions united, which give to the flesh the quality best adapted for its use as food. The juices are kept in the meat, and, instead of being called upon to consume an insipid mass of indigestible fibres, we have a tender piece of meat, from which, when cut, the imprisoned juice runs freely. If the meat be allowed to remain in the boiling water, without the addition of any cold water to it, it becomes in a short time altogether cooked, but it will also be almost indigestible, and therefore unpalatable. To Bake a Ham. — Most persons boil a ham, but a first- rate Virginia housewife tells us it is much better if baked prop- erly. Soak it for an hour or more and wipe dry. Next spread it all over with a batter made of flour and water; put it into a deep pan with muffin rings or bits of oak wood under it to keep it out of the gravy. When fully done — it will take from five to seven hoursTo Bake a Ham — take off the skin and batter crusted upon the flesh side and set it away to cool, or glaze it by the follow- ing recipe: Glazed Ham. — Beat the yolks of two eggs very light. Spread them all over your ham; then sift over fine cracker crumbsGlazed Ham, and set in the oven to brown. Currant jelly may be used instead of yolks of eggs, and is very nice.