The English Housekeeper/Chapter 8
For roasting, meat should be kept longer than for boiling, or it will not, though ever so good, eat well. The proper length of time depends upon the state of the weather, and the age of the animal when killed, for young meat bears keeping less time than old meat. Two days of hot weather will do as much to render meat fit for the spit, as a week of cold weather.
Next after the state of the meat, the thing of most consequence is preparing the fire, which ought to be made up (of the size required by the length and breadth of the joint) half an hour before the meat is put down. It should not at first be exposed to a fierce fire. Let there be a backing of wetted cinders or small coals: this tends to throw the heat in front; lay large coals on the top, smaller ones between the bars, give the fire time to draw, and it will be clear. Before you put down the meat, stir the fire, clear it at the bottom, and see that it be free from smoke in front.
Some cooks make a practice of washing meat, with salt and water, then wiping it dry, before it is roasted. Where there is mustiness, or slimy appearance, it should be wiped off with a wet cloth, otherwise much washing is neither necessary nor beneficial. See that it be properly jointed; if there be too much fat, cut it off (it is better for puddings, in the shape of suet, than dripping); cover the meat with kitchen paper, tied on with twine, and not fastened by pins; see also, that the spit be bright and clean, and take care to run it through the meat, in the right place, at once, for the more the meat is perforated, the greater chance will be given for the escape of the gravy. Great nicety is required in spitting, that the joint may be accurately balanced. In the absence of spits and smoke-jacks, a bottle-jack, or a stout nail with a strong string or skein of worsted, will dangle a joint, and if the fire be made proportionably high to the length of the joint, there is no better mode of roasting. A strong skewer must be run in, at each end of the joint, in order to turn it.
The larger the joint the greater distance it should, at first, be from the fire, that the outside may not be shrivelled up before the middle is warmed. A quarter of an hour to a pound of meat, is the rule for roasting, and it admits of the same exceptions as in the case of boiling, with this addition, that fat meat takes longer than lean meat, as do pork and veal longer than any other kind. Fillets and legs, on account of their solidness, longer than loins and breasts. Much depends upon the situation of the fire-place, and whether the joint be exposed to draughts of cold air, or whether it be preserved from them, and the fire assisted, by a meat screen. Where there is none, a contrivance must be resorted to, by way of substitute, such as small wooden horses, or chairs, with cloths hung over them; these will keep off the cold, but a meat screen, lined with tin, keeps in the heat, and acts as a reflector.—Twice, or if the roast be large, oftener, remove the pan, pour off the dripping (it ought to be strained), draw the spit to a distance, and stir the fire, bring forward the hot coals, and put fresh at the back. Be careful that cinders do not reach the dripping-pan, for the smoke which they cause to rise from the fat, gives a disagreeable flavour to the meat, besides the injury to the dripping. (See Dripping.)—When the meat is nearly done, the steams will draw towards the fire; take the paper off, and move the joint nearer to the fire, particularly the ends, if they want more cooking; sprinkle salt lightly over the roast; then pour off all the remaining dripping, dredge flour very lightly over the joint, and baste with a very little fresh butter, which will not injure the gravy in the pan, but give a delicate froth to the meat. To the gravy now flowing from the meat, the best addition is a teacupful of boiling water. (See Gravies.)
With a clear strong fire (and meat cannot be well roasted without a strong fire), time allowed for gradual cooking, a cook may ensure for her roasts that fine pale brown colour, to produce which is esteemed one of the greatest proofs of a cook's skill.
After reading the foregoing observations, the cook must gain, by observation and practice, that experience which will enable her to send this very best of joints to table, done enough, yet not overdone. A piece of 15 lbs. weight will require nearly four hours to cook it well: cover it with two half sheets of foolscap paper, and put it near to the fire for a few minutes; then rub it well over with butter, and draw it back to a distance (provided always that there is a very good, steady fire); and in this case do not baste at all, but put some boiling water into the dripping-pan when you first put the meat down, and this, by the time the meat is done, will be good gravy, after you have poured the fat off. The older fashion is to baste with dripping as soon as you put it down, and continue the basting every quarter of an hour; but I think the other method gives the meat the most delicate taste and appearance. However, a cook should try both ways, and afterwards follow the one which best suits the taste of her employers.
The old fashion of Yorkshire pudding with roast beef is too good a one to be abandoned, though its substitute of potatoe pudding is not to be rejected. Garnish with finely scraped horseradish.—Where cold roast beef is not liked, or if too underdone to eat cold, slices may be gently simmered over the fire in gravy or broth, or a very little water, and a little pepper and salt, eschalot vinegar, or some sort of catsup. The sirloin always came to table whole in the house in which I was brought up; therefore, I am able to give instructions for cooking it. No spit will carry round a whole sirloin; it must be dangled, and one which weighs (after great part of the suet has been taken out) 40 lbs. will roast in five hours, for it is no thicker than a piece of 10 lbs. weight. The fire must be large and high, the heat, of course, very great. Many a cook's complexion, to say nothing of her temper, has suffered in the cause of our "noble sirloins." If the inside, or tender-loin, be taken out leaving all the fat to roast with the joint, this part may be cooked to resemble hare. For this purpose, spread some hare stuffing over the beef, roll that up tightly with tape, and tie it on the spit. Send this to table with the sauces for roast hare. When the whole joint is roasted, the inside will be sufficiently underdone to make hashes. If only a part of the sirloin be cooked, the inside is best eaten hot, as it is not so good cold as the upper side.—Roast beef bones should be taken care of, for soup and gravy, and used before they become musty.
Roast in the same manner. Half of this joint makes a nice family dish. Parboiled potatoes, browned in the dripping-pan are good.
Roasted the same as the sirloin. But it requires to be basted. Is a better joint to eat cold than sirloin. 15 or 20 lbs. weight, three hours or more, according to the size. Paper the fat and the thin part. Another way is to take out the bones, lay the meat flat, and beat it with a rolling pin; soak it in two thirds of vinegar and one of water, or, better still, white wine in place of vinegar, a night; next day cover it with a rich forcemeat, of veal, suet, grated ham, lemon peel, and mixed spices. Roll it tightly up, fasten with small skewers and tape, and roast it, basting constantly with butter, and serve with venison sauce.—Or: you may take out the bones, roll the meat up like a fillet of veal, lard it, then roast and serve with tomata sauce.
Cut out the pipe that runs along the back bone, wipe off all mustiness. Rather a quick fire is required for mutton, particularly if it have been kept. Roast in the same manner as beef. Paper it, and baste every twenty minutes till the last half hour, when lightly sprinkle with salt, baste with butter, and dredge flour lightly over, and as soon as the froth rises, take it up. Onion, sweet sauce, or currant jelly, are eaten with mutton. Some think it an improvement to the haunch and saddle to take the skin off; to do this you must beat it well with a rolling pin, slip the skin with a sharp knife from the meat, and with a cloth pull it off nearly to the shank. Some put a thin paste over, as directed for venison, others paper only, and the latter is sufficient, if the cook baste enough, and do not let it burn.—A good sauce for roast mutton is made by putting 2 glasses of port wine, 1 of Reading sauce, and a tea-spoonful of garlic vinegar into a small saucepan, and pouring the contents hot over the joint just before serving it.
To dress as Venison.—Keep it as long as you can, then rub with the following, and let it lie in it, thirty-six hours. Mix 2 oz. of coarse sugar, 1 oz. of salt, and ½ oz. of saltpetre. A taste somewhat peculiar to our house, and of American growth, is stewed cranberries, as sauce with roast mutton, and I recommend the trial to all who can procure good cranberries. Tomata sauce is also good with roast mutton.
Soak it well in lukewarm water to disgorge, dry and stuff the interior with a veal stuffing, and roast it two hours. Calves' and Sheep's heart the same.
Stick a fresh tongue all over with cloves, roast it, baste with butter, and serve with port wine sauce, and currant jelly.
The age at which it ought to be killed is a matter of dispute; some say at twelve days old, others at three weeks; but all agree that the sooner it is cooked after, the better. After the inside is taken out, wash the pig well with cold water. Cut off the feet at the first joint, leaving the skin long enough to turn neatly over. Prepare a stuffing as follows: ½ oz. of mild sage, 2 onions, parboiled and chopped fine, a tea-cup full of grated bread crumbs, 2 oz. of good butter, and some pepper, cayenne and salt; put this into the pig, and carefully sew the slit up. Some cooks baste, at first, with salt and water, and then keep brushing the pig with a brush of feathers, dipped in salad oil. Others tie a piece of butter in muslin, and diligently rub the crackling with it; either is good. It should be dredged with flour, soon after it is put down, and the rubbing with butter or oil never cease, or the skin will not be crisp. The fire should be brisk, and a pig iron used, or the pig will be unequally cooked, for the middle will be burnt up, before the two ends are done. A good-sized one will take two hours. A pig should never go whole to table. Take the spit from the fire, and place it across a dish, then with a sharp knife cut the head off, cut down the back, and slip the spit out. Lay it back to back in your dish, and the ears, one at each end, which ought to be quite crisp. For sauce, clear beef, or veal gravy, with a squeeze of lemon, and, if approved, the brains and liver, or a little of the stuffing out of the pig, mixed in it, also a very little finely chopped sage. Apple sauce and currant sauce are not yet out of fashion for roast pig. Chili or eschalot vinegar is an improvement to pig-sauce. The easiest way is to bake it. (See Baking.)
This will hang three weeks with care, but must be watched. Wet it as little as possible; a damp cloth, only, should be used to cleanse it. Butter a sheet of kitchen paper, and tie it over the fat side of the joint, then lay over that a paste of about ½ an inch thick of flour and water; tie another sheet of paper over that, fasten all on firmly, and rub butter over the outside paper, that the fire may not catch it. Baste well, and keep up a strong clear fire. A haunch of from 20 to 25 lbs. weight, in a paste, will take from four to five hours, and not be overdone. Half an hour before it is ready take off the coverings, and put it nearer the fire to brown and froth. Baste with fresh butter, and lightly dredge it with flour. For sauce, currant jelly in heated port wine, in one boat, and clear drawn, unspiced gravy, in another. (See Gravies.) Raspberry vinegar may be used in making sauce for venison. Some epicures like eschalots or small onions, served with venison, hare, or any meat, eaten with sweet sauce.—The shoulder, breast, and neck, are all roasted, but the two latter are best in pies; and if lean, may be used in soup.—Serve French beans, and currant jelly.
This should, like a sucking-pig, be dressed soon after it is killed. When quite young, it is trussed and stuffed like hare. But it is best, when large enough, cut in quarters, and dressed like lamb. The hind quarter is the best. It may be half roasted, and then hashed like hare or venison.—Or: in pies the same as venison. It may also be baked. Venison sauce.
Must have a strong and brisk fire. It must not only be well done through, but be of a nice brown. For the fillet a stuffing of forcemeat made thus: two parts of stale bread-crumbs, one part suet, marrow or fresh butter, a little parsley boiled for a minute and chopped fine, 2 tea-spoonsful of grated lemon peel, a little nutmeg, a very little cayenne and some salt, the whole to be worked to a proper consistence, with yolks of 2 or 3 eggs. Many things may be used in flavouring stuffing, such as grated ham, beef, sausages, pickled oysters, anchovy, sweet herbs, eschalots, mushrooms, truffles, morels, currie powder and cayenne. The fillet should be covered with paper, and securely fastened in a nice shape. Baste well, and half an hour before you take it up, remove the paper, and bring the meat nearer the fire, to brown it. Garnish with slices of lemon. When in the dish, pour some thin melted butter over it, to mix with its own gravy. A fillet of 15 lbs. weight will require 4 hours' roasting. Serve sausages, ham, or bacon, and greens.
Stuff it, using more suet or butter than for the fillet. Serve and garnish the same. From three hours to three and a half.
Must be well jointed. The kidney fat papered, or it will be lost. Toast half the round of a loaf, and place it in the dish under the kidney part, and serve and garnish the same as the fillet. About three hours.
Keep it covered with the caul till nearly done, for that will preserve the meat from being scorched, and will also enrich it.—From one hour and a half to two hours. Some put in a very delicate stuffing.
Two hours to roast.
Lamb must be young, to be good, and requires no keeping to make it tender. It is roasted in quarters, or saddles, legs, and shoulders; must be well done, but does not require a strong fire. Put oiled paper over a fore quarter. One of 10 lbs. weight will require two hours.—When the shoulder is removed, the carver ought to sprinkle some salt, squeeze ½ a lemon, and pour a little melted butter (it may have finely chopped parsley in it), over the target, and then replace the shoulder for a few minutes.—Mint sauce; and garnish with crisp parsley, sprigs of parsley, sprigs of cauliflower, or alternate slices of lemon and sprigs of water cress.—Serve salad, spinach, French beans, cauliflower or green peas. (See Sauces.)
Requires a very strong fire, and must be well done.
Make a slit in the shank, and put in a stuffing of mild sage, and parboiled onions, chopped fine, also pepper, salt, grated stale bread-crumbs, a piece of butter, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, and an egg to cement the whole, then sew it up. Rub the skin often all over with salad oil or fresh butter, while the roast is going on. The skin must be scored about twenty minutes after the pork is put down. A leg of 8 lbs. about three hours. Serve onion sauce, mustard, or apple sauce. (See Sauces.)
When put to the fire, dust some flour over, and baste gently with some butter. Have some sage leaves dried and rubbed through a hair sieve, and about a quarter of an hour before the meat is done, sprinkle this over it, just after the last basting with butter. Apple sauce; mashed potatoes.
Score the loin, and, if you like, stuff it as the leg, or mix powdered sage and finely-chopped onion with the basting. A loin of 5 lbs. two hours; if very fat, half an hour longer. A griskin of 7 or 8 lbs. one hour and a half. Either of these may be baked. Score the rind, rub over it well with butter or oil, and stand it in a common earthen dish, with potatoes peeled and cut in quarters; and, if you like, add some apples also, and two or three onions previously parboiled and cut up. Dress the pork round with these when you serve it. Apples roasted, and sent to table in their skins, are very good with pork.
It is not a good practice to wash poultry, only to wipe it out quite clean; but if it be necessary to wash it, then dredge flour over before you put it down to the fire.
A turkey ought to hang as long as the weather will allow. Take care, in drawing, not to break the gall bag, for no washing would cure the mischief. It is still the custom, in some counties, to send a roast turkey to table with its head on. Press down the breast-bone. Fill the craw with a stuffing as follows: a large cup of bread-crumbs, 2 oz. minced beef suet, a little parsley (always parboiled, as well as onions, for stuffings), a little grated lemon peel, two or three sprigs of thyme, some nutmeg, pepper and salt; mix the whole well, and cement it with an egg. Add, if you choose, parboiled oysters (a few), or a little grated ham. Do not stuff too full, and keep back some of the stuffing to make little balls, to fry and garnish with, unless you have sausages. Paper the breast. Score the gizzard, dip it in melted butter, and then in bread-crumbs, fix it under the pinion, cover it with buttered paper, and be sure that it has its share of basting, as well as the liver, which must be placed under the other pinion. The fire must be the same as for beef. Keep the turkey at a distance from the fire, at first, that the breast and legs may be done. A very large one will require three hours, and is never so good as a moderate sized one, such as will roast in little more than one hour and a half. Dredge with flour, and baste with fresh butter, or wash it with salt butter. Half an hour before it is done, take off the paper, to let the turkey brown, and when the steam draws towards the fire, lightly dredge it with flour; then put a good sized piece of butter in the basting ladle, hold it over the turkey, and let it drop over it as it melts. This will give a finer froth than basting from the dripping-pan. Clear gravy in the dish, and more in a tureen, with egg, bread, or oyster sauce, in another. Chine and greens.
Roasted the same as turkeys, and stuffed, if the size will admit. A large, full-grown fowl will take about one hour and a quarter; a chicken from thirty to forty minutes. The sauces for fowls are, gravy, parsley, and butter, either with or without the liver (roasted) chopped up in it, or mushroom, bread or egg sauce. Three or four slices of fat bacon, not too thick, may be attached by skewers to the breast of a fowl, and is an improvement to a large one.
Well wash and dry it in a cloth; then stuff it with four onions, parboiled, a fourth of their bulk in sage, and half, or, if you like it, the whole of the liver; parboil these together slightly, and mix them with the crumb of a penny loaf and an egg. Or, prepare a stuffing of six good onions, two or three apples, and some sage; chop these together quite fine, season with pepper and salt, and warm it in a saucepan sufficient to half cook it. Put the stuffing in the goose, tie that tightly at both ends, when on the spit: keep it papered the first hour, and baste with a little dripping. Froth it the same as turkey. The fire must be kept brisk. A large goose will require two hours. Take it up before the breast falls. Its own gravy is not good. Serve a good gravy flavoured with port wine, or cider, and walnut catsup, also a table-spoonful of made mustard.—It is a good plan for the cook to cut up the goose, remove the joints separately on another hot dish, then pour the gravy boiling hot over. This may not be fashionable, but it preserves the goose from eating greasy, saves the lady of the house trouble, and insures its being hot when helped. Serve apple sauce.—Some persons like goose stuffed with potatoes, previously boiled, then mashed without butter, and well peppered and salted.
Will roast in half an hour; are not stuffed. Put a good sized piece of butter inside, pepper and salt. Froth and brown nicely. Gooseberry sauce.
Will keep three days, but are better dressed the day they are killed. Ducks may be stuffed or not (the same as geese), according to taste. But if two are roasted, one may be stuffed, and the other merely seasoned inside, with pepper, salt, an eschalot, and cayenne, if liked. Serve green peas with ducks. From three quarters to an hour will roast them. Baste well, and give a good froth. (See Sauces and Forcemeats.) Some persons squeeze a lemon over the breasts when dished.
Take from twenty-five minutes to half an hour. Have a clear brisk fire. They are, generally, preferred underdone, but brown outside. Cut slices in the breast, and squeeze in lemon juice with cayenne; or put an oz. of butter into a stew-pan with a little cayenne, the rind of an orange cut thin and previously blanched in boiling water, and the juice of a lemon; warm this over the fire, and when melted, but not oiled, pour it over the duck and serve. (See Sauces.)
Require a brisk fire. All are trussed in the same way, and the heads left on. Make a slit in the back of the neck to take out the craw; do not turn the head under the wing, but truss it like a fowl, and fasten the neck to its side with a skewer. Thirty minutes will roast a young pheasant, and forty or fifty minutes a full grown one. Good sized partridges take nearly as long. Baste with butter, and froth them. Clear, well-flavoured gravy, in which there should be a tea-spoonful of the essence of ham. Also bread sauce.
French cooks lard all these. (See to Lard.) They also have a method of dressing them thus: lay slices of lemon over the breast, and upon these, slices of fat bacon, cover with paper, and roast them. Another way is to fill the bird with a delicate stuffing of veal, grated ham, lemon grated, and spice; then roast it.
Should be kept as long as they are good. Do not draw woodcocks, for the trail is considered a delicacy, nor cut off their heads. They should be tied to a bird spit, or dangled singly. The fire must be clear. Twenty or thirty minutes is enough for woodcocks, and less for the rest, in proportion to their size. Lay some slices of toasted bread, the crust cut off, in the dripping-pan, to dish them on. Serve melted butter. Garnish with slices of lemon.—In France they stuff woodcocks with truffles, and other things, then roast, or stew them.
Are roasted the same as partridges, the head of grouse twisted under the wing. Do not let them be over-done. A rich gravy, and bread sauce. Garnish with fried bread-crumbs.
Clean them as soon as killed, and the sooner they are dressed the better. Wash them very well, stuff each with a piece of butter the size of an egg, a few bread-crumbs, a little parsley, and the liver chopped, if you like: season well with pepper and salt. Roast twenty-five or thirty minutes. Pour into the dish a little thin melted butter, with or without the parsley, to mix with their own gravy. Serve bread or rice sauce, or parsley and butter. They may be served on a thin toast. Wood-pigeons should hang till tender, then roasted and served in rich gravy. They require less roasting than tame pigeons.
Some of these are nice eating, particularly the Wheat-ear, which, from its superior flavour, has been called the English ortolan. A roast of small birds is so much the fashion in France, that you seldom travel many days together without finding it one of the principal dishes of the supper table. In the autumn, and, indeed, through the winter, you will constantly see a partridge, or a woodcock, served up in the midst of a numerous company of blackbirds, thrushes, larks, and a variety of such small birds; a truly "dainty dish to set before a king." This custom is remarkable because there is a comparative scarcity of small birds in France, whilst we in England are overstocked with them. The sparrow-pudding is known in many country places, but is not often seen. Indeed, in this land of beef and mutton, it would be hard if these little creatures could not be left to sing and build their nests in peace. With the French there is such an avidity for all sorts of small birds, that a string of them is one of the most ordinary articles in the larder. Nothing that flies in France above the order of humming-birds in its size, is too insignificant to come within the scope of the sportsman's ambition, and the purveyor's nets and springes. I am not sure whether our exquisite neighbours ever proceed so far as to devour sweet Philomel herself; but they certainly do what would be deemed still more shocking in England, making no exception in favour of that little bird, to injure which is here a sort of crime; they kill the robins and cook them by dozens at a time. The Forest of Ardennes abounds in them, and in the season the traveller may fare sumptuously upon these pretty little creatures, without being aware of what he is eating. Lovers of delicacies might find it worth their while to travel in the countries where the vine and the fig-tree abound. There the small birds feed and fatten on the grapes, even in the winter, for, long after the conclusion of the vintage, refuse grapes may always be found hanging. This food, so superior to our blackberries, hips and haws, may well cause the flavour of the birds to be in the highest perfection: for the fruit is so nutritious that the labouring people almost entirely live upon it through one whole season of the year. In Sicily the grapes will keep for months after they are quite ripe, hanging on the vines in the open air. There is a little bird, about the size of the nightingale, called the fig-pecker, from its feeding upon the figs. This is one of the most prized delicacies of the south of France and Italy.—All the above-named birds require to be well cleaned. Then put them on a bird-spit or skewer, and tie that on another spit, or dangle it before the fire. Baste constantly with good butter, and strew sifted bread-crumbs over as they roast. French cooks generally put a thin small slice of bacon over the breast of each bird, bringing it over each wing. Fifteen minutes will roast them. Serve larks on bread-crumbs, and garnish with slices of lemon.—Or: dip the birds into a batter, then roll them in bread-crumbs.
Should, unless a leveret, hang several days, to become tender. Cooks differ as to the proper method of keeping it. Some keep it unpaunched, while others see that it is paunched instantly, wiped clean and dry inside, and then let it hang as many as eight days. If really an old hare, it should be made into soup at once, for it will never be tender enough to roast. The heart and liver should be taken out as soon as possible, washed, scraped, parboiled, and kept for the stuffing. Most cooks maintain the practice of soaking hares for two hours in water, but more are rendered dry and tasteless by this method than would be so naturally. A slit should be cut in the neck, to let the blood out, and the hare be washed in several different waters. Prepare a rich and relishing stuffing, as follows: the grated crumb of a penny loaf, a ¼ lb. beef suet, or 3 oz. of marrow, a small quantity of parsley and eschalot, a tea-spoonful of grated lemon-peel, the same of nutmeg, salt, pepper, and the liver chopped, mix all together with the yolk of an egg; and an anchovy, if approved; put it inside the hare, and sew it up. For basting, most cooks use milk and water till within twenty minutes, or thereabouts, of the hare being done, and then baste with butter. But a cook of ours, first basted it with milk and water, for about ten minutes, to draw away the blood, then with ale, and for the last half hour with fresh dripping, until about five minutes before the hare was taken up, when she basted with butter to give a froth, having previously lightly floured it. Where cream and eggs abound, you may, after the hare has been basted with butter, empty the dripping pan, and baste with warm cream, and the yolk of an egg mixed in it. A good-sized hare will take one hour and a quarter to roast. Serve good gravy in a tureen, and currant jelly, or some piquant sauce. (See Sauces.) Kid is dressed the same way.
Is roasted in the same manner as hare; in addition to the stuffing, put three or four slices, cut very thin, of bacon. Liver sauce.