All your attention in roasting will be thrown away, if you do not take care that your meat, especially beef, has been kept long enough to be tender. See "ADVICE TO COOKS," and obs. to No. 68.

Make up the fire in time; let it be proportioned to the dinner to be dressed, and about three or four inches longer at each end than the thing to be roasted, or the ends of the meat cannot be done nice and brown.

A cook must be as particular to proportion her fire to the business she has to do, as a chemist: the degree of heat most desirable for dressing the different sorts of food ought to be attended to with the utmost precision.

The fire that is but just sufficient to receive the noble sirloin (No. 19), will parch up a lighter joint.

From half an hour to an hour before you begin to roast, prepare the fire by putting a few coals on, which will be sufficiently lighted by the time you wish to make use of your fire; between the bars, and on the top, put small or large coals, according to the bulk of the joint, and the time the fire is required to be strong; after which, throw the cinders (wetted) at the back.

Never put meat down to a burned-up fire, if you can possibly avoid it; but should the fire become fierce, place the spit at a considerable distance, and allow a little more time.

Preserve the fat,[75-*] by covering it with paper, for this purpose called "kitchen-paper," and tie it on with fine twine; pins and skewers can by no means be allowed; they are so many taps to let out the gravy: besides, the paper often starts from them and catches fire, to the great injury of the meat.

If the thing to be roasted be thin and tender, the fire should be little and brisk: when you have a large joint to roast, make up a sound, strong fire, equally good in every part of the grate, or your meat cannot be equally roasted, nor have that uniform colour which constitutes the beauty of good roasting.

Give the fire a good stirring before you lay the joint down; examine it from time to time while the spit is going round; keep it clear at the bottom, and take care there are no smoky coals in the front, which will spoil the look and taste of the meat, and hinder it from roasting evenly.

When the joint to be roasted is thicker at one end than the other, place the spit slanting, with the thickest part nearest the fire.

Do not put meat too near the fire at first; the larger the joint, the farther it must be kept from the fire: if once it gets scorched, the outside will become hard, and acquire a disagreeable, empyreumatic taste; and the fire being prevented from penetrating into it, the meat will appear done before it is little more than half-done, besides losing the pale brown colour, which it is the beauty of roasted meat to have.

From 14 to 10 inches is the usual distance at which meat is put from the grate, when first put down. It is extremely difficult to offer any thing like an accurate general rule for this, it depends so much upon the size of the fire, and of that of the thing to be roasted.

Till some culinary philosopher shall invent a thermometer to ascertain the heat of the fire, and a graduated spit-rack to regulate the distance from it, the process of roasting is attended by so many ever-varying circumstances, that it must remain among those which can only be performed well, by frequent practice and attentive observation.

If you wish your jack to go well, keep it as clean as possible, oil it, and then wipe it: if the oil is not wiped off again it will gather dust; to prevent this, as soon as you have done roasting, cover it up. Never leave the winders on while the jack is going round, unless you do it, as Swift says, "that it may fly off, and knock those troublesome servants on the head who will be crowding round your kitchen fire."

Be very careful to place the dripping-pan at such a distance from the fire as just to catch the drippings: if it is too near, the ashes will fall into it, and spoil the drippings[76-*] (which we shall hereafter show will occasionally be found an excellent substitute for butter or lard). To clarify drippings, see (No. 83,) and pease and dripping soup (No. 229), savoury and salubrious, for only a penny per quart. If it is too far from the fire to catch them, you will not only lose your drippings, but the meat will be blackened and spoiled by the foetid smoke, which will arise when the fat falls on the live cinders.

A large dripping-pan is convenient for several purposes. It should not be less than 28 inches long and 20 inches wide, and have a covered well on the side from the fire, to collect the drippings; this will preserve them in the most delicate state: in a pan of the above size you may set fried fish, and various dishes, to keep hot.

This is one of Painter's and Hawke's contrivances, near Norfolk-street, Strand.

The time meat will take roasting will vary according to the time it has been kept, and the temperature of the weather; the same weight[77-*] will be twenty minutes or half an hour longer in cold weather,[77-+] than it will be in warm; and if fresh killed, than if it has been kept till it is tender.

A good meat-screen is a great saver of fuel. It should be on wheels, have a flat top, and not be less than about three feet and a half wide, and with shelves in it, about one foot deep; it will then answer all the purposes of a large Dutch oven, plate-warmer, hot hearth, &c. Some are made with a door behind: this is convenient, but the great heat they are exposed to soon shrinks the materials, and the currents of air through the cracks cannot be prevented, so they are better without the door. We have seen one, which had on the top of it a very convenient hot closet, which is a great acquisition in kitchens, where the dinner waits after it is dressed.

Every body knows the advantage of slow boiling. Slow roasting is equally important.

It is difficult to give any specific rule for time; but if your fire is made as before directed, your meat-screen sufficiently large to guard what you are dressing from currents of air, and the meat is not frosted, you cannot do better than follow the old general rule of allowing rather more than a quarter of an hour to the pound; a little more or less, according to the temperature of the weather, in proportion as the piece is thick or thin, the strength of the fire, the nearness of the meat to it, and the frequency with which you baste it; the more it is basted the less time it will take, as it keeps the meat soft and mellow on the outside, and the fire acts with more force upon it.

Reckon the time, not to the hour when dinner is ordered, but to the moment the roasts will be wanted. Supposing there are a dozen people to sip soup and eat fish first, you may allow them ten or fifteen minutes for the former, and about as long for the latter, more or less, according to the temptations the "BON GOUT" of these preceding courses has to attract their attention.

When the joint is half done, remove the spit and dripping-pan back, and stir up your fire thoroughly, that it may burn clear and bright for the browning; when the steam from the meat draws towards the fire,[78-*] it is a sign of its being done enough; but you will be the best judge of that, from the time it has been down, the strength of the fire you have used, and the distance your spit has been from it.

Half an hour before your meat is done, make some gravy (see Receipt, No. 326); and just before you take it up, put it nearer the fire to brown it. If you wish to froth it, baste it, and dredge it with flour carefully: you cannot do this delicately nice without a very good light. The common fault seems to be using too much flour. The meat should have a fine light varnish of froth, not the appearance of being covered with a paste. Those who are particular about the froth use butter instead of drippings; (see receipt to roast a turkey, No. 57)—

"And send up what you roast with relish-giving froth,"

says Dr. King, and present such an agreeable appearance to the eye, that the palate may be prepossessed in its favour at first sight; therefore, have the whole course dished, before roasts are taken from the fire.

A good cook is as anxiously attentive to the appearance and colour of her roasts, as a court beauty is to her complexion at a birthday ball. If your meat does not brown so much, or so evenly as you wish, take two ounces of Glaze, i. e. portable soup, put four table-spoonfuls of water, and let it warm and dissolve gradually by the side of the fire. This will be done in about a quarter of an hour; put it on the meat equally all over with a paste-brush the last thing before it goes to table.

Though roasting is one of the most common, and is generally considered one of the most easy and simple processes of cookery, it requires more unremitting attention to perform it perfectly well than it does to make most made-dishes.

That made-dishes are the most difficult preparations, deserves to be reckoned among the culinary vulgar errors; in plain roasting and boiling it is not easy to repair a mistake once made; and all the discretion and attention of a steady, careful cook, must be unremittingly upon the alert.[78-+]

A diligent attention to time, the distance of the meat from, and judicious management of, the fire, and frequent bastings,[79-*] are all the general rules we can prescribe. We shall deliver particular rules for particular things, as the several articles occur, and do our utmost endeavours to instruct our reader as completely as words can describe the process, and teach

"The management of common things so well, That what was thought the meanest shall excel: That cook's to British palates most complete, Whose sav'ry skill gives zest to common meat: For what are soups, your ragouts, and your sauce, Compared to the fare of OLD ENGLAND, And OLD ENGLISH ROAST BEEF!"

* TAKE NOTICE, that the TIME given in the following receipts is calculated for those who like meat thoroughly roasted. (See N.B. preceding No. 19.)

Some good housewives order very large joints to be rather under-done, as they then make a better hash or broil.

To make gravy for roast, see No. 326.

N.B. Roasts must not be put on, till the soup and fish are taken off the table.

DREDGINGS.

1. Flour mixed with grated bread.

2. Sweet herbs dried and powdered, and mixed with grated bread.

3. Lemon-peel dried and pounded, or orange-peel, mixed with flour.

4. Sugar finely powdered, and mixed with pounded cinnamon, and flour or grated bread.

5. Fennel-seeds, corianders, cinnamon, and sugar, finely beaten, and mixed with grated bread or flour.

6. For young pigs, grated bread or flour, mixed with beaten nutmeg, ginger, pepper, sugar, and yelks of eggs.

7. Sugar, bread, and salt, mixed.

BASTINGS.

1. Fresh butter.

2. Clarified suet.

3. Minced sweet herbs, butter, and claret, especially for mutton and lamb.

4. Water and salt.

5. Cream and melted butter, especially for a flayed pig.

6. Yelks of eggs, grated biscuit, and juice of oranges.

FOOTNOTES:

[74-*] Small families have not always the convenience of roasting with a spit; a remark upon ROASTING BY A STRING is necessary. Let the cook, before she puts her meat down to the fire, pass a strong skewer through each end of the joint: by this means, when it is about half-done, she can with ease turn the bottom upwards; the gravy will then flow to the part which has been uppermost, and the whole joint be deliciously gravyful.

A BOTTLE JACK, as it is termed by the furnishing ironmongers, is a valuable instrument for roasting.

A DUTCH OVEN is another very convenient utensil for roasting light joints, or warming them up.

[75-*] If there is more FAT than you think will be eaten with the lean, trim it off; it will make an excellent PUDDING (No. 551, or 554): or clarify it (No. 83).

[76-*] This the good housewife will take up occasionally, and pass through a sieve into a stone pan; by leaving it all in the dripping-pan until the meat is taken up, it not only becomes very strong, but when the meat is rich, and yields much of it, it is apt to be spilt in basting. To CLARIFY DRIPPINGS, see No. 83.

[77-*] Insist upon the butcher fixing a TICKET of the weight to each joint.

[77-+] IF THE MEAT IS FROZEN, the usual practice is to put it into cold water till it is thawed, then dry and roast it as usual; but we recommend you to bring it into the kitchen the night before, or early in the morning of the day you want to roast it, and the warm air will thaw it much better.

[78-*] When the steam begins to arise, it is a proof that the whole joint is thoroughly saturated with heat; any unnecessary evaporation is a waste of the best nourishment of the meat.

[78-+] A celebrated French writer has given us the following observations on roasting:—

"The art of roasting victuals to the precise degree, is one of the most difficult in this world; and you may find half a thousand good cooks sooner than one perfect roaster. (See 'Almanach des Gourmands,' vol. i. p. 37.) In the mansions of the opulent, they have, besides the master kitchener, a roaster, (perfectly independent of the former,) who is exclusively devoted to the spit.

"All erudite gourmands know that these two important functions cannot be performed by one artist; it is quite impossible at the same time to superintend the operations of the spit and stewpan."—Further on, the same author observes: "No certain rules can be given for roasting, the perfection of it depending on many circumstances which are continually changing; the age and size (especially the thickness) of the pieces, the quality of the coals, the temperature of the atmosphere, the currents of air in the kitchen, the more or less attention of the roaster; and, lastly, the time of serving. Supposing the dinner ordered to be on table at a certain time, if the fish and soup are much liked, and detained longer than the roaster has calculated; or, on the contrary, if they are despatched sooner than is expected, the roasts will in one case be burnt up, in the other not done enough—two misfortunes equally to be deplored. The first, however, is without a remedy; five minutes on the spit, more or less, decides the goodness of this mode of cookery. It is almost impossible to seize the precise instant when it ought to be eaten; which epicures in roasts express by saying, 'It is done to a turn.' So that there is no exaggeration in saying, the perfect roaster is even more rare than the professed cook.

"In small families, where the cook is also the roaster, it is almost impossible the roasts should be well done: the spit claims exclusive attention, and is an imperious mistress who demands the entire devotion of her slave. But how can this be, when the cook is obliged, at the same time, to attend her fish and soup-kettles, and watch her stewpans and all their accompaniments?—it is morally and physically impossible: if she gives that delicate and constant attention to the roasts which is indispensably requisite, the rest of the dinner must often be spoiled; and most cooks would rather lose their character as a roaster, than neglect the made-dishes and 'entremets,' &c., where they think they can display their culinary science,—than sacrifice these to the roasts, the perfection of which will only prove their steady vigilance and patience."

[79-*] Our ancestors were very particular in their BASTINGS and DREDGINGS, as will be seen by the following quotation from MAY'S "Accomplished Cook," London, 1665, p. 136. "The rarest ways of dressing of all manner of roast meats, either flesh or fowl, by sea or land, and divers ways of braiding or dredging meats to prevent the gravy from too much evaporating."



CHAPTER III.

FRYING.

Frying is often a convenient mode of cookery; it may be performed by a fire which will not do for roasting or boiling; and by the introduction of the pan between the meat and the fire, things get more equally dressed.

The Dutch oven or bonnet is another very convenient utensil for small things, and a very useful substitute for the jack, the gridiron, or frying-pan.

A frying-pan should be about four inches deep, with a perfectly flat and thick bottom, 12 inches long and 9 broad, with perpendicular sides, and must be half filled with fat: good frying is, in fact, boiling in fat. To make sure that the pan is quite clean, rub a little fat over it, and then make it warm, and wipe it out with a clean cloth.

Be very particular in frying, never to use any oil, butter, lard, or drippings, but what is quite clean, fresh, and free from salt. Any thing dirty spoils the look; any thing bad-tasted or stale, spoils the flavour; and salt prevents its browning.

Fine olive oil is the most delicate for frying; but the best oil is expensive, and bad oil spoils every thing that is dressed with it.

For general purposes, and especially for fish, clean fresh lard is not near so expensive as oil or clarified butter, and does almost as well. Butter often burns before you are aware of it; and what you fry will get a dark and dirty appearance.

Cooks in large kitchens, where there is a great deal of frying, commonly use mutton or beef suet clarified (see No. 84): if from the kidney, all the better.

Dripping, if nicely clean and fresh, is almost as good as any thing; if not clean, it may be easily clarified (see No. 83). Whatever fat you use, after you have done frying, let it remain in the pan for a few minutes, and then pour it through a sieve into a clean basin; it will do three or four times as well as it did at first, i. e. if it has not burned: but, Mem. the fat you have fried fish in must not be used for any other purpose.

To know when the fat is of a proper heat, according to what you are to fry, is the great secret in frying.

To fry fish, parsley, potatoes, or any thing that is watery, your fire must be very clear, and the fat quite hot; which you may be pretty sure of, when it has done hissing, and is still. We cannot insist too strongly on this point: if the fat is not very hot, you cannot fry fish either to a good colour, or firm and crisp.

To be quite certain, throw a little bit of bread into the pan; if it fries crisp, the fat is ready; if it burns the bread, it is too hot.

The fire under the pan must be clear and sharp, otherwise the fat is so long before it becomes ready, and demands such attendance to prevent the accident of its catching fire,[81-*] that the patience of cooks is exhausted, and they frequently, from ignorance or impatience, throw in what they are going to fry before the fat is half hot enough. Whatever is so fried will be pale and sodden, and offend the palate and stomach not less than the eye.

Have a good light to fry by, that you may see when you have got the right colour: a lamp fixed on a stem, with a loaded foot, which has an arm that lengthens out, and slides up and down like a reading candlestick, is a most useful appendage to kitchen fireplaces, which are very seldom light enough for the nicer operations of cookery.

After all, if you do not thoroughly drain the fat from what you have fried, especially from those things that are full dressed in bread crumbs,[82-*] or biscuit powder, &c., your cooking will do you no credit.

The dryness of fish depends much upon its having been fried in fat of a due degree of heat; it is then crisp and dry in a few minutes after it is taken out of the pan: when it is not, lay it on a soft cloth before the fire, turning it occasionally, till it is. This will sometimes take 15 minutes: therefore, always fry fish as long as this before you want them, for fear you may find this necessary.

To fry fish, see receipt to fry soles, (No. 145) which is the only circumstantial account of the process that has yet been printed. If the cook will study it with a little attention, she must soon become an accomplished frier.

Frying, though one of the most common of culinary operations, is one that is least commonly performed perfectly well.

FOOTNOTES:

[81-*] If this unfortunately happens, be not alarmed, but immediately wet a basket of ashes and throw them down the chimney, and wet a blanket and hold it close all round the fireplace; as soon as the current of air is stopped, the fire will be extinguished; with a CHARCOAL STOVE there is no danger, as the diameter of the pan exceeds that of the fire.



CHAPTER IV.

BROILING.

"And as now there is nought on the fire that is spoiling, We'll give you just two or three hints upon broiling; How oft you must turn a beefsteak, and how seldom A good mutton chop, for to have 'em both well done; And for skill in such cookery your credit 't will fetch up, If your broils are well-seasoned with good mushroom catchup."

Cleanliness is extremely essential in this mode of cookery.

Keep your gridiron quite clean between the bars, and bright on the top: when it is hot, wipe it well with a linen cloth: just before you use it, rub the bars with clean mutton-suet, to prevent the meat from being marked by the gridiron.

Take care to prepare your fire in time, so that it may burn quite clear: a brisk and clear fire is indispensable, or you cannot give your meat that browning which constitutes the perfection of this mode of cookery, and gives a relish to food it cannot receive any other way.

The chops or slices should be from half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness; if thicker, they will be done too much on the outside before the inside is done enough.

Be diligently attentive to watch the moment that any thing is done: never hasten any thing that is broiling, lest you make smoke and spoil it.

Let the bars of the gridiron be all hot through, but yet not burning hot upon the surface: this is the perfect and fine condition of the gridiron.

As the bars keep away as much heat as their breadth covers, it is absolutely necessary they should be thoroughly hot before the thing to be cooked be laid on them.

The bars of gridirons should be made concave, and terminate in a trough to catch the gravy and keep the fat from dropping into the fire and making a smoke, which will spoil the broil.

Upright gridirons are the best, as they can be used at any fire without fear of smoke; and the gravy is preserved in the trough under them.

N.B. Broils must be brought to table as hot as possible; set a dish to heat when you put your chops on the gridiron, from whence to the mouth their progress must be as quick as possible.

When the fire is not clear, the business of the gridiron may be done by the Dutch oven or bonnet.

FOOTNOTES:

[82-*] When you want a great many BREAD CRUMBS, divide your loaf (which should be two days old) into three equal parts; take the middle or crumb piece, the top and bottom will do for table: in the usual way of cutting, the crust is wasted.

OATMEAL is a very satisfactory, and an extremely economical substitute for bread crumbs. See No. 145.



CHAPTER V.

VEGETABLES.

There is nothing in which the difference between an elegant and an ordinary table is more seen than in the dressing of vegetables, more especially greens. They may be equally as fine at first, at one place as at another; but their look and taste are afterward very different, entirely from the careless way in which they have been cooked.

They are in greatest perfection when in greatest plenty, i. e. when in full season.

By season, I do not mean those early days, that luxury in the buyers, and avarice in the sellers, force the various vegetables; but that time of the year in which by nature and common culture, and the mere operation of the sun and climate, they are in most plenty and perfection.

Potatoes and pease are seldom worth eating before midsummer; unripe vegetables are as insipid and unwholesome as unripe fruits.

As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferred to the largest or the smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of flavour, just before they are quite full-grown. Freshness is their chief value and excellence, and I should as soon think of roasting an animal alive, as of boiling a vegetable after it is dead.

The eye easily discovers if they have been kept too long; they soon lose their beauty in all respects.

Roots, greens, salads, &c. and the various productions of the garden, when first gathered, are plump and firm, and have a fragrant freshness no art can give them again, when they have lost it by long keeping; though it will refresh them a little to put them into cold spring water for some time before they are dressed.

To boil them in soft water will preserve the colour best of such as are green; if you have only hard water, put to it a tea-spoonful of carbonate of potash.[84-*]

Take care to wash and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and insects: this requires great attention. Pick off all the outside leaves, trim them nicely, and, if not quite fresh gathered and have become flaccid, it is absolutely necessary to restore their crispness before cooking them, or they will be tough and unpleasant: lay them in a pan of clean water, with a handful of salt in it, for an hour before you dress them.

"Most vegetables being more or less succulent, their full proportion of fluids is necessary for their retaining that state of crispness and plumpness which they have when growing. On being cut or gathered, the exhalation from their surface continues, while, from the open vessels of the cut surface, there is often great exudation or evaporation; and thus their natural moisture is diminished, the tender leaves become flaccid, and the thicker masses or roots lose their plumpness. This is not only less pleasant to the eye, but is a real injury to the nutritious powers of the vegetable; for in this flaccid and shrivelled state its fibres are less easily divided in chewing, and the water which exists in vegetable substances, in the form of their respective natural juices, is directly nutritious. The first care in the preservation of succulent vegetables, therefore, is to prevent them from losing their natural moisture."—Suppl. to Edin. Encyclop. vol. iv. p. 335.

They should always be boiled in a sauce-pan by themselves, and have plenty of water; if meat is boiled with them in the same pot, they will spoil the look and taste of each other.

If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c.; which should not be put in till the water boils briskly: the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their colour and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before you send them to table.

This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.

If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all their beauty and flavour.

If not thoroughly boiled tender, they are tremendously indigestible, and much more troublesome during their residence in the stomach, than under-done meats.[85-*]

To preserve or give colour in cookery, many good dishes are spoiled; but the rational epicure who makes nourishment the main end of eating, will be content to sacrifice the shadow to enjoy the substance. Vide Obs. to No. 322.

Once for all, take care your vegetables are fresh: for as the fishmonger often suffers for the sins of the cook, so the cook often gets undeservedly blamed instead of the green-grocer.

Vegetables, in this metropolis, are often kept so long, that no art can make them either look or eat well.

Strong-scented vegetables should be kept apart; leeks, or celery, laid among cauliflowers, &c. will quickly spoil them.

"Succulent vegetables are best preserved in a cool, shady, and damp place.

"Potatoes, turnips, carrots, and similar roots, intended to be stored up, should never be cleaned from the earth adhering to them, till they are to be dressed.

"They must be protected from the action of the air and frost, by laying them in heaps, burying them in sand or earth, &c., or covering them with straw or mats.

"The action of frost destroys the life of the vegetable, and it speedily rots."—Suppl. to Edin. Encyclop. vol. iv. p. 335.

MEM.—When vegetables are quite fresh gathered, they will not require so much boiling, by at least a third of the time, as when they have been gathered the usual time those are that are brought to public markets.

FOOTNOTES:

[84-*] Pearlash is a sub-carbonate, and will answer the purpose. It is a common article in the kitchen of the American housekeeper. A.

[85-*] "CAULIFLOWERS and other vegetables are often boiled only crisp to preserve their beauty. For the look alone they had better not be boiled at all, and almost as well for the use, as in this crude state they are scarcely digestible by the strongest stomach. On the other hand, when over-boiled, they become vapid, and in a state similar to decay, in which they afford no sweet purifying juices to the body, but load it with a mass of mere feculent matter."—Domestic Management, 12mo. 1813, p. 69.



CHAPTER VI.

FISH.

This department of the business of the kitchen requires considerable experience, and depends more upon practice than any other. A very few moments, more or less, will thoroughly spoil fish;[86-*] which, to be eaten in perfection, must never be put on the table till the soup is taken off.

So many circumstances operate on this occasion, that it is almost impossible to write general rules.

There are decidedly different opinions, whether fish should be put into cold, tepid, or boiling water.

We believe, for some of the fame the Dutch cooks have acquired, they are a little indebted to their situation affording them a plentiful supply of fresh fish for little more than the trouble of catching it; and that the superior excellence of the fish in Holland, is because none are used, unless they are brought alive into the kitchen (mackerel excepted, which die the moment they are taken out of the water). The Dutch are as nice about this as Seneca says the Romans[86-+] were; who, complaining of the luxury of the times, says, "They are come to that daintiness, that they will not eat a fish, unless upon the same day that it is taken, that it may taste of the sea, as they express it."

On the Dutch flat coast, the fish are taken with nets: on our rocky coast, they are mostly caught by bait and hook, which instantly kills them. Fish are brought alive by land to the Dutch markets, in water casks with air-holes in the top. Salmon, and other fish, are thus preserved in rivers, in a well-hole in the fishing-boat.

All kinds of fish are best some time before they begin to spawn; and are unfit for food for some time after they have spawned.

Fish, like animals, are fittest for the table when they are just full grown; and what has been said in Chapter V. respecting vegetables, applies equally well to fish.

The most convenient utensil to boil fish in, is a turbot-kettle. This should be 24 inches long, 22 wide, and 9 deep. It is an excellent vessel to boil a ham in, &c. &c.

The good folks of this metropolis are so often disappointed by having fish which has been kept too long, that they are apt to run into the other extreme, and suppose that fish will not dress well unless it is absolutely alive. This is true of lobsters, &c. (No. 176), and may be of fresh-water fish, but certainly not of some sea-fish.

Several respectable fishmongers and experienced cooks have assured the editor, that they are often in danger of losing their credit by fish too fresh, and especially turbot and cod, which, like meat, require a certain time before they are in the best condition to be dressed. They recommend them to be put into cold water, salted in proportion of about a quarter of a pound of salt to a gallon of water. Sea-water is best to boil sea-fish in. It not only saves the expense of salt, but the flavour is better. Let them boil slowly till done; the sign of which is, that the skin of the fish rises up, and the eyes turn white.

It is the business of the fishmonger to clean them, &c. but the careful cook will always wash them again.

Garnish with slices of lemon, finely scraped horseradish, fried oysters (No. 183), smelts (No. 173), whitings (No. 153), or strips of soles, as directed in No. 145.

The liver, roe, and chitterlings should be placed so that the carver may observe them, and invite the guests to partake of them.

N.B. FISH, like meat, requires more cooking in cold than in warm weather. If it becomes FROZEN,[88-*] it must be thawed by the means we have directed for meat, in the 2d chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery.

[Fish are plenty and good, and in great variety, in all the towns and cities on the extensive coast of the United States. Some of the interior towns are also supplied with fish peculiar to the lakes and rivers of this country. A.]

FISH SAUCES.

The melted butter (No. 256) for fish, should be thick enough to adhere to the fish, and, therefore, must be of the thickness of light batter, as it is to be diluted with essence of anchovy (No. 433), soy (No. 436), mushroom catchup (No. 439). Cayenne (No. 404), or Chili vinegar (No. 405), lemons or lemon-juice, or artificial lemon-juice, (see No. 407*), &c. which are expected at all well-served tables.

Cooks, who are jealous of the reputation of their taste, and housekeepers who value their health, will prepare these articles at home: there are quite as many reasons why they should, as there are for the preference usually given to home-baked bread and home-brewed beer, &c.

N.B. The liver of the fish pounded and mixed with butter, with a little lemon-juice, &c. is an elegant and inoffensive relish to fish (see No. 288). Mushroom sauce extempore (No. 307), or the soup of mock turtle (No. 247), will make an excellent fish sauce.

On the comparatively nutritive qualities of fish, see N.B. to No. 181.

FOOTNOTES:

[86-*] When the cook has large dinners to prepare, and the time of serving uncertain, she will get more credit by FRIED (see No. 145), or stewed (see No. 164), than by BOILED fish. It is also cheaper, and much sooner carved (see No. 145).

Mr. Ude, page 238 of his cookery, advises, "If you are obliged to wait after the fish is done, do not let it remain in the water, but keep the water boiling, and put the fish over it, and cover it with a damp cloth; when the dinner is called for, dip the fish again in the water, and serve it up."

The only circumstantial instructions yet printed for FRYING FISH, the reader will find in No. 145; if this be carefully and nicely attended to, you will have delicious food.

[86-+] They had salt-water preserves for feeding different kinds of sea-fish; those in the ponds of Lucullus, at his death, sold for 25,000l. sterling. The prolific power of fish is wonderful: the following calculations are from Petit, Block, and Leuwenhoeck:—

Eggs. A salmon of 20 pounds weight contained 27,850 A middling-sized pike 148,000 A mackerel 546,681 A cod 9,344,000

See Cours Gastronomiques, 18mo. 1806, p. 241.

[88-*] Fish are very frequently sent home frozen by the fishmonger, to whom an ice-house is now as necessary an appendage (to preserve fish,) as it is to a confectioner.



CHAPTER VII.

BROTHS AND SOUPS.

The cook must pay continual attention to the condition of her stew-pans[89-*] and soup-kettles, &c. which should be examined every time they are used. The prudent housewife will carefully examine the condition of them herself at least once a month. Their covers also must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned, and the stew-pans not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside: many mischiefs arise from their getting out of repair; and if not kept nicely tinned, all your good work will be in vain; the broths and soups will look green and dirty, taste bitter and poisonous, and will be spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost.

The health, and even life of the family, depends upon this, and the cook may be sure her employers had rather pay the tinman's bill than the doctor's; therefore, attention to this cannot fail to engage the regard of the mistress, between whom and the cook it will be my utmost endeavour to promote perfect harmony.

If a servant has the misfortune to scorch or blister the tinning of her pan,[89-+] which will happen sometimes to the most careful cook, I advise her, by all means, immediately to acquaint her employers, who will thank her for candidly mentioning an accident; and censure her deservedly if she conceal it.

Take care to be properly provided with sieves and tammy cloths, spoons and ladles. Make it a rule without an exception, never to use them till they are well cleaned and thoroughly dried, nor any stewpans, &c. without first washing them out with boiling water, and rubbing them well with a dry cloth and a little bran, to clean them from grease, sand, &c., or any bad smell they may have got since they were last used: never neglect this.

Though we do not suppose our cook to be such a naughty slut as to wilfully neglect her broth-pots, &c., yet we may recommend her to wash them immediately, and take care they are thoroughly dried at the fire, before they are put by, and to keep them in a dry place, for damp will rust and destroy them very soon: attend to this the first moment you can spare after the dinner is sent up.

Never put by any soup, gravy, &c. in metal utensils; in which never keep any thing longer than is absolutely necessary for the purposes of cookery; the acid, vegetables, fat, &c. employed in making soups, &c. are capable of dissolving such utensils; therefore stone or earthen vessels should be used for this purpose.

Stew-pans, soup-pots, and preserving pans, with thick and round bottoms (such as sauce-pans are made with), will wear twice as long, and are cleaned with half the trouble, as those whose sides are soldered to the bottom, of which sand and grease get into the joined part, and cookeys say that it is next to an impossibility to dislodge it, even if their nails are as long as Nebuchadnezzar's. The Editor claims the credit bf having first suggested the importance of this construction of these utensils.

Take care that the lids fit as close as possible, that the broth, soup, and sauces, &c. may not waste by evaporation. They are good for nothing, unless they fit tight enough to keep the steam in and the smoke out.

Stew-pans and sauce-pans should be always bright on the upper rim, where the fire does not burn them; but to scour them all over is not only giving the cook needless trouble, but wearing out the vessels. See observations on sauce-pans in Chapter I.

Cultivate habits of regularity and cleanliness, &c. in all your business, which you will then get through easily and comfortably. I do not mean the restless spirit of Molidusta, "the Tidy One," who is anon, anon, Sir, frisking about in a whirlpool of bustle and confusion, and is always dirty, under pretence of being always cleaning.

Lean, juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the basis of broth; procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and as fresh killed as possible.[90-*]

Stale meat will make broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat meat is wasted. This only applies to those broths which are required to be perfectly clear: we shall show hereafter (in No. 229), that fat and clarified drippings may be so combined with vegetable mucilage, as to afford, at the small cost of one penny per quart, a nourishing and palatable soup, fully adequate to satisfy appetite and support strength: this will open a new source to those benevolent housekeepers, who are disposed to relieve the poor, will show the industrious classes how much they have it in their power to assist themselves, and rescue them from being objects of charity dependent on the precarious bounty of others, by teaching them how they may obtain a cheap, abundant, salubrious, and agreeable aliment for themselves and families.

This soup has the advantage of being very easily and very soon made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room. Those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a salubrious, savoury, and satisfying meal is produced by the judicious combination of cheap homely ingredients.

Scotch barley broth (No. 204) will furnish a good dinner of soup and meat for fivepence per head, pease soup (No. 221) will cost only sixpence per quart, ox-tail soup (No. 240) or the same portable soup (No. 252), for fivepence per quart, and (No. 224) an excellent gravy soup for fourpence halfpenny per quart, duck-giblet soup (No. 244) for threepence per quart, and fowls' head soup in the same manner for still less (No. 239), will give you a good and plentiful dinner for six people for two shillings and twopence. See also shin of beef stewed (No. 493), and a-la-mode beef (No. 502).

BROTH HERBS, SOUP ROOTS, AND SEASONINGS.

Scotch barley (No. 204). Pearl barley. Flour. OATMEAL (No. 572). Bread. Raspings. Pease (No. 218). Beans. Rice (No. 321*). Vermicelli. Macaroni (No. 513). Isinglass. Potato mucilage (No. 448). Mushrooms[91-*] (No. 439). Champignons. Parsnips (No. 213). Carrots (No. 212). Beet-roots. Turnips (No. 208). Garlic. Shallots, (No. 402.) Onions.[91-+] Leeks. Cucumber.[92-*] Celery (No. 214). CELERY SEED.[92-+] Cress-seed,[92-+] (No. 397). Parsley,[92-+] (N.B. to No. 261.) Common thyme.[92-+] Lemon thyme.[92-+] Orange thyme.[92-+] Knotted marjorum[92-+] (No. 417). Sage.[92-+] Mint (No. 398). Winter savoury.[92-+] Sweet basil[92-+] (No. 397). Bay leaves. Tomata. Tarragon (No. 396). Chervil. Burnet (No. 399). ALLSPICE[92-Sec.] (No. 412). Cinnamon[92-Sec.] (No. 416*). Ginger[92-Sec.] (No. 411). Nutmeg.[92-Sec.] Clove (No. 414). Mace. Black pepper. Lemon-peel (No. 407 & 408.) White pepper. Lemon-juice.[92- ] Seville orange-juice.[92-#] Essence of anchovy (No. 433).

The above materials, wine, and mushroom catchup (No. 439), combined in various proportions, will make an endless variety[93-*] of excellent broths and soups, quite as pleasant to the palate, and as useful and agreeable to the stomach, as consuming pheasants and partridges, and the long list of inflammatory, piquante, and rare and costly articles, recommended by former cookery-book makers, whose elaborately compounded soups are like their made dishes; in which, though variety is aimed at, every thing has the same taste, and nothing its own.

The general fault of our soups seems to be the employment of an excess of spice, and too small a portion of roots and herbs.[93-+]

Besides the ingredients I have enumerated, many culinary scribes indiscriminately cram into almost every dish (in such inordinate quantities, one would suppose they were working for the asbestos palate of an Indian fire-eater) anchovies, garlic,[93-+] bay-leaves, and that hot, fiery spice, Cayenne[93-Sec.] pepper; this, which the French call (not undeservedly) piment enrage (No. 404), has, somehow or other, unaccountably acquired a character for being very wholesome; while the milder peppers and spices are cried down, as destroying the sensibility of the palate and stomach, &c., and being the source of a thousand mischiefs. We should just as soon recommend alcohol as being less intoxicating than wine.

The best thing that has been said in praise of peppers is, "that with all kinds of vegetables, as also with soups (especially vegetable soups) and fish, either black or Cayenne pepper may be taken freely: they are the most useful stimulants to old stomachs, and often supersede the cravings for strong drinks; or diminish the quantity otherwise required." See Sir A. CARLISLE on Old Age, London, 1817. A certain portion of condiment is occasionally serviceable to excite and keep up the languid action of feeble and advanced life: we must increase the stimulus of our aliment as the inirritability of our system increases. We leave those who love these things to use them as they like; their flavours can be very extemporaneously produced by chilly-juice, or essence of Cayenne (No. 405), eschalot wine (No. 402), and essence of anchovy (No. 433).

There is no French dinner without soup, which is regarded as an indispensable overture; it is commonly followed by "le coup d'Apres," a glass of pure wine, which they consider so wholesome after soup, that their proverb says, the physician thereby loses a fee. Whether the glass of wine be so much more advantageous for the patient than it is for his doctor, we know not, but believe it an excellent plan to begin the banquet with a basin of good soup, which, by moderating the appetite for solid animal food, is certainly a salutiferous custom. Between the roasts and the entremets they introduce "le coup du Milieu" or a small glass of Jamaica rum, or essence of punch (see No. 471), or CURACAO (No. 474).

The introduction of liqueurs is by no means a modern custom: our ancestors were very fond of a highly spiced stimulus of this sort, commonly called Ipocrasse, which generally made a part of the last course, or was taken immediately after dinner.

The crafte to make ypocras.

"Take a quarte of red wyne, an ounce of synamon, and halfe an ounce of gynger; a quarter of an ounce of greynes (probably of paradise) and long pepper, and halfe a pounde of sugar; and brose (bruise) all this (not too small), and then put them in a bage (bag) of wullen clothe, made, therefore, with the wynee; and lete it hange over a vessel, till the wynee be run thorowe."—An extract from Arnold's Chronicle.

It is a custom which almost universally prevails in the northern parts of Europe, to present a dram or glass of liqueur, before sitting down to dinner: this answers the double purpose of a whet to the appetite, and an announcement that dinner is on the point of being served up. Along with the dram, are presented on a waiter, little square pieces of cheese, slices of cold tongue, dried tongue, and dried toast, accompanied with fresh caviar.

We again caution the cook to avoid over-seasoning, especially with predominant flavours, which, however agreeable they may be to some, are extremely disagreeable to others. See page 50.

Zest (No. 255), soy (No. 436), cavice, coratch, anchovy (No. 433), curry powder (No. 455), savoury ragout powder (No. 457), soup herb powder (No. 459 and 460), browning (No. 322), catchups (No. 432), pickle liquor, beer, wine, and sweet herbs, and savoury spice (No. 460), are very convenient auxiliaries to finish soups, &c.

The proportion of wine (formerly sack, then claret, now Madeira or port) should not exceed a large wine-glassful to a quart of soup. This is as much as can be admitted, without the vinous flavour becoming remarkably predominant; though not only much larger quantities of wine (of which claret is incomparably the best, because it contains less spirit and more flavour, and English palates are less acquainted with it), but even veritable eau de vie is ordered in many books, and used by many (especially tavern cooks). So much are their soups overloaded with relish, that if you will eat enough of them they will certainly make you drunk, if they don't make you sick: all this frequently arises from an old cook measuring the excitability of the eater's palates by his own, which may be so blunted by incessant tasting, that to awaken it, requires wine instead of water, and Cayenne and garlic for black pepper and onion.

Old cooks are as fond of spice, as children are of sugar, and season soup, which is intended to constitute a principal part of a meal, as highly as sauce, of which only a spoonful may be relish enough for a plate of insipid viands. (See obs. to No. 355.) However, we fancy these large quantities of wine, &c. are oftener ordered in cookery books than used in the kitchen: practical cooks have the health of their employers too much at heart, and love "sauce a la langue" too well to overwine their soup, &c.

Truffles and morels[95-*] are also set down as a part of most receipts. These, in their green state, have a very rich high flavour, and are delicious additions to some dishes, or sent up as a stew by themselves when they are fresh and fine; but in this state they are not served up half a dozen times in a year at the first tables in the kingdom: when dried they become mere "chips in pottage," and serve only to soak up good gravy, from which they take more taste than they give.

The art of composing a rich soup is so to proportion the several ingredients one to another, that no particular taste be stronger than the rest, but to produce such a fine harmonious relish that the whole is delightful. This requires that judicious combination of the materials which constitutes the "chef d'oeuvre" of culinary science.

In the first place, take care that the roots and herbs be perfectly well cleaned; proportion the water to the quantity of meat and other ingredients, generally a pound of meat to a quart of water for soups, and double that quantity for gravies. If they stew gently, little more water need be put in at first than is expected at the end; for when the pot is covered quite close, and the fire gentle, very little is wasted.

Gentle stewing is incomparably the best; the meat is more tender, and the soup better flavoured.

It is of the first importance that the cover of a soup-kettle should fit very close, or the broth will evaporate before you are aware of it. The most essential parts are soon evaporated by quick boiling, without any benefit, except to fatten the fortunate cook who inhales them. An evident proof that these exhalations[96-*] possess the most restorative qualities is, that THE COOK, who is in general the least eater, is, as generally, the fattest person in the family, from continually being surrounded by the quintessence of all the food she dresses; whereof she sends to HER MASTER only the fibres and calcinations, who is consequently thin, gouty, and the victim of diseases arising from insufficient nourishment.

It is not only the fibres of the meat which nourish us, but the juices they contain, and these are not only extracted but exhaled, if it be boiled fast in an open vessel. A succulent soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, which preserves the nutritive parts by preventing their dissipation. This is a fact of which every intelligent person will soon perceive the importance.

Place your soup-pot over a moderate fire, which will make the water hot without causing it to boil for at least half an hour; if the water boils immediately, it will not penetrate the meat, and cleanse it from the clotted blood, and other matters which ought to go off in scum; the meat will be hardened all over by violent heat; will shrink up as if it was scorched, and give hardly any gravy: on the contrary, by keeping the water a certain time heating without boiling, the meat swells, becomes tender, its fibres are dilated, and it yields a quantity of scum, which must be taken off as soon as it appears.

It is not till after a good half hour's hot infusion that we may mend the fire, and make the pot boil: still continue to remove the scum; and when no more appears, put in the vegetables, &c. and a little salt. These will cause more scum to rise, which must be taken off immediately; then cover the pot very closely, and place it at a proper distance from the fire, where it will boil very gently, and equally, and by no means fast.

By quick and strong boiling the volatile and finest parts of the ingredients are evaporated, and fly off with the steam, and the coarser parts are rendered soluble; so you lose the good, and get the bad.

Soups will generally take from three to six hours.

Prepare your broths and soups the evening before you want them. This will give you more time to attend to the rest of your dinner the next day; and when the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed from the surface of it. When you decant it, take care not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve, or even through a TAMIS, which is the best strainer, the soups appear smoother and finer, and it is much easier cleaned than any sieve. If you strain it while it is hot, pass it through a clean tamis or napkin, previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of this will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure broth to pass through.

The full flavour of the ingredients can only be extracted by very long and slow simmering; during which take care to prevent evaporation, by covering the pot as close as possible: the best stew-pot is a digester.

Clear soups must be perfectly transparent; thickened soups, about the consistence of rich cream; and remember that thickened soups require nearly double the quantity of seasoning. The piquance of spice, &c. is as much blunted by the flour and butter, as the spirit of rum is by the addition of sugar and acid: so they are less salubrious, without being more savoury, from the additional quantity of spice, &c. that is smuggled into the stomach.

To thicken and give body to soups and sauces, the following materials are used: they must be gradually mixed with the soup till thoroughly incorporated with it; and it should have at least half an hour's gentle simmering after: if it is at all lumpy, pass it through a tamis or a fine sieve. Bread raspings, bread, isinglass, potato mucilage (No. 448), flour, or fat skimmings and flour (see No. 248), or flour and butter, barley (see No. 204), rice, or oatmeal and water rubbed well together, (see No. 257, in which this subject is fully explained.)

To give that glutinous quality so much admired in mock turtle, see No. 198, and note under No. 247, No. 252, and N.B. to No. 481.

To their very rich gravies, &c. the French add the white meat of partridges, pigeons, or fowls, pounded to a pulp, and rubbed through a sieve. A piece of beef, which has been boiled to make broth, pounded in the like manner with a bit of butter and flour, see obs. to No. 485* and No. 503, and gradually incorporated with the gravy or soup, will be found a satisfactory substitute for these more expensive articles.

Meat from which broth has been made (No. 185, and No. 252), and all its juice has been extracted, is then excellently well prepared for POTTING, (see No. 503), and is quite as good, or better, than that which has been baked till it is dry;[98-*] indeed, if it be pounded, and seasoned in the usual manner, it will be an elegant and savoury luncheon, or supper, and costs nothing but the trouble of preparing it, which is very little, and a relish is procured for sandwiches, &c. (No. 504) of what heretofore has been by the poorest housekeeper considered the perquisite of the CAT.

Keep some spare broth lest your soup-liquor waste in boiling, and get too thick, and for gravy for your made dishes, various sauces, &c.; for many of which it is a much better basis than melted butter.

The soup of mock turtle, and the other thickened soups, (No. 247), will supply you with a thick gravy sauce for poultry, fish, ragouts, &c.; and by a little management of this sort, you may generally contrive to have plenty of good gravies and good sauces with very little trouble or expense. See also Portable Soup (No. 252).

If soup is too thin or too weak, take off the cover of your soup-pot, and let it boil till some of the watery part of it has evaporated, or else add some of the thickening materials we have before mentioned; and have at hand some plain browning: see No. 322, and the obs. thereon. This simple preparation is much better than any of the compounds bearing that name; as it colours sauce or soup without much interfering with its flavour, and is a much better way of colouring them than burning the surface of the meat.

When soups and gravies are kept from day to day, in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh-scalded tureens or pans, and placed in a cool cellar; in temperate weather every other day may be enough.

We hope we have now put the common cook into possession of the whole arcana of soup-making, without much trouble to herself, or expense to her employers. It need not be said in future that an Englishman only knows how to make soup in his stomach, by swilling down a large quantity of ale or porter, to quench the thirst occasioned by the meat he eats. JOHN BULL may now make his soup "secundum artem," and save his principal viscera a great deal of trouble.

*.* In the following receipts we have directed the spices[99-*] and flavouring to be added at the usual time; but it would greatly diminish the expense, and improve the soups, if the agents employed to give them a zest were not put in above fifteen minutes before the finish, and half the quantity of spice, &c. would do. A strong heat soon dissipates the spirit of the wine, and evaporates the aroma and flavour of the spices and herbs, which are volatile in the heat of boiling water.

In ordering the proportions of meat, butter, wine, &c. the proper quantity is set down, and less will not do: we have carried economy quite as far as possible without "spoiling the broth for a halfpenny worth of salt."

I conclude these remarks with observing, that some persons imagine that soup tends to relax the stomach. So far from being prejudicial, we consider the moderate use of such liquid nourishment to be highly salutary. Does not our food and drink, even though cold, become in a few minutes a kind of warm soup in the stomach? and therefore soup, if not eaten too hot, or in too great a quantity, and of proper quality, is attended with great advantages, especially to those who drink but little.

Warm fluids, in the form of soup, unite with our juices much sooner and better than those that are cold and raw: on this account, RESTORATIVE SOUP is the best food for those who are enfeebled by disease or dissipation, and for old people, whose teeth and digestive organs are impaired.

"Half subtilized to chyle, the liquid food Readiest obeys th' assimilating powers."

After catching cold, in nervous headaches, cholics, indigestions, and different kinds of cramp and spasms in the stomach, warm broth is of excellent service.

After intemperate feasting, to give the stomach a holyday for a day or two by a diet on mutton broth (No. 564, or No. 572), or vegetable soup (No. 218), &c. is the best way to restore its tone. "The stretching any power to its utmost extent weakens it. If the stomach be every day obliged to do as much as it can, it will every day be able to do less. A wise traveller will never force his horse to perform as much as he can in one day upon a long journey."—Father FEYJOO'S Rules, p. 85.

To WARM SOUPS, &c. (No. 485.)

N.B. With the PORTABLE SOUP (No. 252), a pint of broth may be made in five minutes for threepence.

FOOTNOTES:

[89-*] We prefer the form of a stew-pan to the soup-pot; the former is more convenient to skim: the most useful size is 12 inches diameter by 6 inches deep: this we would have of silver, or iron, or copper, lined (not plated) with silver.

[89-+] This may be always avoided by browning your meat in the frying-pan; it is the browning of the meat that destroys the stew-pan.

[90-*] In general, it has been considered the best economy to use the cheapest and most inferior meats for soup, &c., and to boil it down till it is entirely destroyed, and hardly worth putting into the hog-tub. This is a false frugality: buy good pieces of meat, and only stew them till they are done enough to be eaten.

[91-*] MUSHROOM CATCHUP, made as No. 439, or No. 440, will answer all the purposes of mushrooms in soup or sauce, and no store-room should be without a stock of it.

[91-+] All cooks agree in this opinion, No savoury dish without an ONION.

Sliced onions fried, (see No. 299, and note under No. 517), with some butter and flour, till they are browned (and rubbed through a sieve), are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of most of the relishes furnished by the "Restaurateurs"—as we guess from the odour which ascends from their kitchens, and salutes our olfactory nerves "en passant."

The older and drier the onion, the stronger its flavour; and the cook will regulate the quantity she uses accordingly.

[92-*] Burnet has exactly the same flavour as cucumber. See Burnet vinegar (No. 399).

[92-+] The concentration of flavour in CELERY and CRESS SEED is such, that half a drachm of it (finely pounded), or double the quantity if not ground or pounded, costing only one-third of a farthing, will impregnate half a gallon of soup with almost as much relish as two or three heads of the fresh vegetable, weighing seven ounces, and costing twopence. This valuable acquisition to the soup-pot deserves to be universally known. See also No. 409, essence of CELERY. This is the most frugal relish we have to introduce to the economist: but that our judgment in palates may not be called in question by our fellow-mortals, who, as the Craniologists say, happen to have the organ of taste stronger than the organ of accumulativeness, we must confess, that, with the flavour it does not impart the delicate sweetness, &c. of the fresh vegetable; and when used, a bit of sugar should accompany it.

[92-+] See No. 419, No. 420, and No. 459. Fresh green BASIL is seldom to be procured. When dried, much of its fine flavour is lost, which is fully extracted by pouring wine on the fresh leaves (see No. 397).

To procure and preserve the flavour of SWEET AND SAVOURY HERBS, celery, &c. these must be dried, &c. at home (see No. 417* and No. 461).

[92-Sec.] See No. 421 and No. 457. Sir Hans Sloane, in the Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. xi. p. 667, says, "Pimento, the spice of Jamaica, or ALLSPICE, so called, from having a flavour composed as it were of cloves, cinnamon, nutmegs, and pepper, may deservedly be counted the best and most temperate, mild, and innocent of common spices, almost all of which it far surpasses, by promoting the digestion of meat, and moderately heating and strengthening the stomach, and doing those friendly offices to the bowels, we generally expect from spices." We have always been of the same opinion as Sir Hans, and believe the only reason why it is the least esteemed spice is, because it is the cheapest. "What folks get easy they never enjoy."

[92- ] If you have not fresh orange or lemon-juice, or Coxwell's crystallized lemon acid, the artificial lemon juice (No. 407) is a good substitute for it.

[92-#] The juice of the SEVILLE ORANGE is to be preferred to that of the LEMON, the flavour is finer, and the acid milder.

[93-*] The erudite editor of the "Almanach des Gourmands," vol. ii. p. 30, tells us, that ten folio volumes would not contain the receipts of all the soups that have been invented in that grand school of good eating,—the Parisian kitchen.

[93-+] "Point de Legumes, point de Cuisiniere," is a favourite culinary adage of the French kitchen, and deserves to be so: a better soup may be made with a couple of pounds of meat and plenty of vegetables, than our common cooks will make you with four times that quantity of meat; all for want of knowing the uses of soup roots, and sweet and savoury herbs.

[93-+] Many a good dish is spoiled, by the cook not knowing the proper use of this, which is to give a flavour, and not to be predominant over the other ingredients: a morsel mashed with the point of a knife, and stirred in, is enough. See No. 402.

[93-Sec.] Foreigners have strange notions of English taste, on which one of their culinary professors has made the following comment: "the organ of taste in these ISLANDERS is very different from our delicate palates; and sauce that would excoriate the palate of a Frenchman, would be hardly piquante enough to make any impression on that of an Englishman; thus they prefer port to claret," &c. As far as concerns our drinking, we wish there was not quite so much truth in Monsieur's remarks, but the characteristic of the French and English kitchen is sauce without substance, and substance without sauce.

To make CAYENNE of English chillies, of infinitely finer flavour than the Indian, see No. 404.

[95-*] We tried to make catchup of these by treating them like mushrooms (No. 439), but did not succeed.

[96-*] "A poor man, being very hungry, staid so long in a cook's shop, who was dishing up meat, that his stomach was satisfied with only the smell thereof. The choleric cook demanded of him to pay for his breakfast; the poor man denied having had any, and the controversy was referred to the deciding of the next man that should pass by, who chanced to be the most notorious idiot in the whole city: he, on the relation of the matter, determined that the poor man's money should be put between two empty dishes, and the cook should be recompensed with the jingling of the poor man's money, as he was satisfied with the smell of the cook's meat." This is affirmed by credible writers as no fable, but an undoubted truth.—FULLER'S Holy State, lib. iii. c. 12, p. 20.

[98-*] If the gravy be not completely drained from it, the article potted will very soon turn sour.

[99-*] Economists recommend these to be pounded; they certainly go farther, as they call it; but we think they go too far, for they go through the sieve, and make the soup grouty.



CHAPTER VIII.

GRAVIES AND SAUCES.

"The spirit of each dish, and ZEST of all, Is what ingenious cooks the relish call; For though the market sends in loads of food, They are all tasteless, till that makes them good."

KING'S Art of Cookery.

"Ex parvis componere magna."

It is of as much importance that the cook should know how to make a boat of good gravy for her poultry, &c. as that it should be sent up of proper complexion, and nicely frothed.

In this chapter, we shall endeavour to introduce to her all the materials[101-*] which give flavour in sauce, which is the essence of soup, and intended to contain more relish in a tea-spoonful than the former does in a table-spoonful.

We hope to deserve as much praise from the economist as we do from the bon vivant; as we have taken great pains to introduce to him the methods of making substitutes for those ingredients, which are always expensive, and often not to be had at all. Many of these cheap articles are as savoury and as salutary as the dearer ones, and those who have large families and limited incomes, will, no doubt, be glad to avail themselves of them.

The reader may rest assured, that whether he consults this book to diminish the expense or increase the pleasures of hospitality, he will find all the information that was to be obtained up to 1826, communicated in the most unreserved and intelligible manner.

A great deal of the elegance of cookery depends upon the accompaniments to each dish being appropriate and well adapted to it.

We can assure our readers, no attention has been wanting on our part to render this department of the work worthy of their perusal; each receipt is the faithful narrative of actual and repeated experiments, and has received the most deliberate consideration before it was here presented to them. It is given in the most circumstantial manner, and not in the technical and mysterious language former writers on these subjects seem to have preferred; by which their directions are useless and unintelligible to all who have not regularly served an apprenticeship at the stove.

Thus, instead of accurately enumerating the quantities, and explaining the process of each composition, they order a ladleful of stock, a pint of consomme, and a spoonful of cullis; as if a private-family cook had always at hand a soup-kettle full of stock, a store of consomme, and the larder of Albion house, and the spoons and pennyworths were the same in all ages.

It will be to very little purpose that I have taken so much pains to teach how to manage roasts and boils, if a cook cannot or will not make the several sauces that are usually sent up with them.

The most homely fare may be made relishing, and the most excellent and independent improved by a well-made sauce;[102-*] as the most perfect picture may, by being well varnished.

We have, therefore, endeavoured to give the plainest directions how to produce, with the least trouble and expense[102-+] possible, all the various compositions the English kitchen affords; and hope to present such a wholesome and palatable variety as will suit all tastes and all pockets, so that a cook may give satisfaction in all families. The more combinations of this sort she is acquainted with, the better she will comprehend the management of every one of them.

We have rejected some outlandish farragoes, from a conviction that they were by no means adapted to an English palate. If they have been received into some English books, for the sake of swelling the volume, we believe they will never be received by an Englishman's stomach, unless for the reason they were admitted into the cookery book, i. e. because he has nothing else to put into it.

However "les pompeuses bagatelles de la Cuisine Masquee" may tickle the fancy of demi-connoisseurs, who, leaving the substance to pursue the shadow, prefer wonderful and whimsical metamorphoses, and things extravagantly expensive to those which are intrinsically excellent; in whose mouth mutton can hardly hope for a welcome, unless accompanied by venison sauce; or a rabbit, any chance for a race down the red lane, without assuming the form of a frog or a spider; or pork, without being either "goosified" or "lambified" (see No. 51); and game and poultry in the shape of crawfish or hedgehogs; these travesties rather show the patience than the science of the cook, and the bad taste of those who prefer such baby-tricks to nourishing and substantial plain cookery.

I could have made this the biggest book with half the trouble it has taken me to make it the best: concentration and perspicuity have been my aim.

As much pains have been taken in describing, in the most intelligible manner, how to make, in the easiest, most agreeable, and economical way, those common sauces that daily contribute to the comfort of the middle ranks of society; as in directing the preparation of those extravagant and elaborate double relishes, the most ingenious and accomplished "officers of the mouth" have invented for the amusement of profound palaticians, and thorough-bred grands gourmands of the first magnitude: these we have so reduced the trouble and expense of making, as to bring them within the reach of moderate fortunes; still preserving all that is valuable of their taste and qualities; so ordering them, that they may delight the palate, without disordering the stomach, by leaving out those inflammatory ingredients which are only fit for an "iron throat and adamantine bowels," and those costly materials which no rational being would destroy, for the wanton purpose of merely giving a fine name to the compositions they enter into, to whose excellence they contribute nothing else. For instance, consuming two partridges to make sauce for one: half a pint of game gravy (No. 329,) will be infinitely more acceptable to the unsophisticated appetite of Englishmen, for whose proper and rational recreation we sat down to compose these receipts; whose approbation we have done our utmost to deserve, by devoting much time to the business of the kitchen; and by repeating the various processes that we thought admitted of the smallest improvement.

We shall be fully gratified, if our book is not bought up with quite so much avidity by those high-bred epicures, who are unhappily so much more nice than wise, that they cannot eat any thing dressed by an English cook; and vote it barbarously unrefined and intolerably ungenteel, to endure the sight of the best bill of fare that can be contrived, if written in the vulgar tongue of old England.[103-*]

Let your sauces each display a decided character; send up your plain sauces (oyster, lobster, &c.) as pure as possible: they should only taste of the materials from which they take their name.

The imagination of most cooks is so incessantly on the hunt for a relish, that they seem to think they cannot make sauce sufficiently savoury without putting into it every thing that ever was eaten; and supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently overpower the natural flavour of their PLAIN SAUCES, by overloading them with salt and spices, &c.: but, remember, these will be deteriorated by any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate. The lover of "piquance" and compound flavours, may have recourse to "the Magazine of Taste," No. 462.

On the contrary, of COMPOUND SAUCES; the ingredients should be so nicely proportioned, that no one be predominant; so that from the equal union of the combined flavours such a fine mellow mixture is produced, whose very novelty cannot fail of being acceptable to the persevering gourmand, if it has not pretensions to a permanent place at his table.

An ingenious cook will form as endless a variety of these compositions as a musician with his seven[104-*] notes, or a painter with his colours; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an opportunity to display her abilities: SPICES, HERBS, &c. are often very absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.

Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg, in the same sauce; or marjoram, thyme, and savoury; or onions, leeks, eschalots, and garlic? one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to make soup, order one quart of water from the Thames, another from the New River, a third from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea, with a certain portion of spring and rain water.

In many of our receipts we have fallen in with the fashion of ordering a mixture of spices, &c., which the above hint will enable the culinary student to correct.

"PHARMACY is now much more simple; COOKERY may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded with five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it: people begin to understand that the materia medica is little more than a collection of evacuants and stimuli."—Boswell's Life of Johnson.

The ragouts of the last century had infinitely more ingredients than we use now; the praise given to Will. Rabisha for his Cookery, 12mo. 1673, is

"To fry and fricassee, his way's most neat, For he compounds a thousand sorts of meat."

To become a perfect mistress of the art of cleverly extracting and combining flavours,[105-*] besides the gift of a good taste, requires all the experience and skill of the most accomplished professor, and, especially, an intimate acquaintance with the palate she is working for.

Send your sauces to table as hot as possible.

Nothing can be more unsightly than the surface of a sauce in a frozen state, or garnished with grease on the top. The best way to get rid of this, is to pass it through a tamis or napkin previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of the napkin will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure gravy to pass through: if any particles of fat remain, take them off by applying filtering paper, as blotting paper is applied to writing.

Let your sauces boil up after you put in wine, anchovy, or thickening, that their flavours may be well blended with the other ingredients;[105-+] and keep in mind that the "chef-d'oeuvre" of COOKERY is, to entertain the mouth without offending the stomach.

N.B. Although I have endeavoured to give the particular quantity of each ingredient used in the following sauces, as they are generally made; still the cook's judgment must direct her to lessen or increase either of the ingredients, according to the taste of those she works for, and will always be on the alert to ascertain what are the favourite accompaniments desired with each dish. See Advice to Cooks, page 50.

When you open a bottle of catchup (No. 439), essence of anchovy (No. 433), &c., throw away the old cork, and stop it closely with a new cork that will fit it very tight. Use only the best superfine velvet taper-corks.

Economy in corks is extremely unwise: in order to save a mere trifle in the price of the cork, you run the risk of losing the valuable article it is intended to preserve.

It is a vulgar error that a bottle must be well stopped, when the cork is forced down even with the mouth of it; it is rather a sign that the cork is too small, and it should be redrawn and a larger one put in.

To make bottle-cement.

Half a pound of black resin, same quantity of red sealing-wax, quarter oz. bees' wax, melted in an earthen or iron pot; when it froths up, before all is melted and likely to boil over, stir it with a tallow candle, which will settle the froth till all is melted and fit for use. Red wax, 10d. per lb. may be bought at Mr. Dew's Blackmore-street, Clare-market.

N.B. This cement is of very great use in preserving things that you wish to keep a long time, which without its help would soon spoil, from the clumsy and ineffectual manner in which the bottles are corked.

FOOTNOTES:

[101-*] See, in pages 91, 92, A CATALOGUE OF THE INGREDIENTS now used in soups, sauces, &c.

[102-*] "It is the duty of a good sauce," says the editor of the Almanach des Gourmands (vol. v. page 6), "to insinuate itself all round and about the maxillary gland, and imperceptibly awaken into activity each ramification of the organs of taste: if not sufficiently savoury, it cannot produce this effect, and if too piquante, it will paralyze, instead of exciting, those delicious titillations of tongue and vibrations of palate, that only the most accomplished philosophers of the mouth can produce on the highly-educated palates of thrice happy grands gourmands."

[102-+] To save time and trouble is the most valuable frugality: and if the mistress of a family will condescend to devote a little time to the profitable and pleasant employment of preparing some of the STORE SAUCES, especially Nos. 322. 402. 404. 413. 429. 433. 439. 454; these, both epicures and economists will avail themselves of the advantage now given them, of preparing at home.

By the help of these, many dishes may be dressed in half the usual time, and with half the trouble and expense, and flavoured and finished with much more certainty than by the common methods.

A small portion of the time which young ladies sacrifice to torturing the strings of their piano-forte, employed in obtaining domestic accomplishments, might not make them worse wives, or less agreeable companions to their husbands. This was the opinion 200 years ago.

"To speak, then, of the knowledge which belongs unto our British housewife, I hold the most principal to be a perfect skill in COOKERY: she that is utterly ignorant therein, may not, by the lawes of strict justice, challenge the freedom of marriage, because indeede she can perform but half her vow: she may love and obey, but she cannot cherish and keepe her husband."—G. MARKHAM'S English Housewife, 4to. 1637, p. 62.

We hope our fair readers will forgive us, for telling them that economy in a wife, is the most certain charm to ensure the affection and industry of a husband.

[103-*] Though some of these people seem at last to have found out, that an Englishman's head may be as full of gravy as a Frenchman's, and willing to give the preference to native talent, retain an Englishman or woman as prime minister of their kitchen; still they seem ashamed to confess it, and commonly insist as a "sine qua non," that their English domestics should understand the "parlez vous;" and notwithstanding they are perfectly initiated in all the minutiae of the philosophy of the mouth, consider them uneligible, if they cannot scribble a bill of fare in pretty good bad French.

[104-*] The principal agents now employed to flavour soups and sauces are, MUSHROOMS (No. 439), ONIONS (No. 420), ANCHOVY (No. 433), LEMON-JUICE and PEEL, or VINEGAR, WINE, (especially good CLARET), SWEET HERBS, and SAVOURY SPICES.—Nos. 420-422, and 457. 459, 460.

[105-*] If your palate becomes dull by repeatedly tasting, the best way to refresh it is to wash your mouth well with milk.

[105-+] Before you put eggs or cream into a sauce, have all your other ingredients well boiled, and the sauce or soup of proper thickness; because neither eggs nor cream will contribute to thicken it.—After you have put them in, do not set the stew-pan on the stove again, but hold it over the fire, and shake it round one way till the sauce is ready.



CHAPTER IX.

MADE DISHES.

Under this general head we range our receipts for HASHES, STEWS, and RAGOUTS,[106-*] &c. Of these there are a great multitude, affording the ingenious cook an inexhaustible store of variety: in the French kitchen they count upwards of 600, and are daily inventing new ones.

We have very few general observations to make, after what we have already said in the two preceding chapters on sauces, soups, &c., which apply to the present chapter, as they form the principal part of the accompaniment of most of these dishes. In fact, MADE DISHES are nothing more than meat, poultry (No. 530), or fish (Nos. 146, 158, or 164), stewed very gently till they are tender, with a thickened sauce poured over them.

Be careful to trim off all the skin, gristle, &c. that will not be eaten; and shape handsomely, and of even thickness, the various articles which compose your made dishes: this is sadly neglected by common cooks. Only stew them till they are just tender, and do not stew them to rags; therefore, what you prepare the day before it is to be eaten, do not dress quite enough the first day.

We have given receipts for the most easy and simple way to make HASHES, &c. Those who are well skilled in culinary arts can dress up things in this way, so as to be as agreeable as they were the first time they were cooked. But hashing is a very bad mode of cookery: if meat has been done enough the first time it is dressed, a second dressing will divest it of all its nutritive juices; and if it can be smuggled into the stomach by bribing the palate with piquante sauce, it is at the hazard of an indigestion, &c.

I promise those who do me the honour to put my receipts into practice, that they will find that the most nutritious and truly elegant dishes are neither the most difficult to dress, the most expensive, nor the most indigestible. In these compositions experience will go far to diminish expense: meat that is too old or too tough for roasting, &c., may by gentle stewing be rendered savoury and tender. If some of our receipts do differ a little from those in former cookery books, let it be remembered we have advanced nothing in this work that has not been tried, and experience has proved correct.

N.B. See No. 483, an ingenious and economical system of FRENCH COOKERY, written at the request of the editor by an accomplished ENGLISH LADY, which will teach you how to supply your table with elegant little made dishes, &c. at as little expense as plain cookery.

FOOTNOTES:

[106-*] Sauce for ragouts, &c., should be thickened till it is of the consistence of good rich cream, that it may adhere to whatever it is poured over. When you have a large dinner to dress, keep ready-mixed some fine-sifted flour and water well rubbed together till quite smooth, and about as thick as butter. See No. 257.



THE

COOK'S ORACLE.

BOILING.

[Read the first chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery.]

Leg of Mutton.—(No. 1.)

Cut off the shank bone, and trim the knuckle, put it into lukewarm water for ten minutes, wash it clean, cover it with cold water, and let it simmer very gently, and skim it carefully. A leg of nine pounds will take two and a half or three hours, if you like it thoroughly done, especially in very cold weather.

For the accompaniments, see the following receipt.

N.B. The tit-bits with an epicure are the "knuckle," the kernel, called the "pope's eye," and the "gentleman's" or "cramp bone," or, as it is called in Kent, the "CAW CAW," four of these and a bounder furnish the little masters and mistresses of Kent with their most favourite set of playthings.

A leg of mutton stewed very slowly, as we have directed the beef to be (No. 493), will be as agreeable to an English appetite as the famous "gigot[108-*] de sept heures" of the French kitchen is to a Parisian palate.

When mutton is very large, you may divide it, and roast the fillet, i. e. the large end, and boil the knuckle end; you may also cut some fine cutlets off the thick end of the leg, and so have two or three good hot dinners. See Mrs. MAKEITDO'S receipt how to make a leg of mutton last a week, in "the housekeeper's leger," printed for Whittaker, Ave-Maria Lane.

The liquor the mutton is boiled in, you may convert into good soup in five minutes, (see N.B. to No. 218,) and Scotch barley broth (No. 204). Thus managed, a leg of mutton is a most economical joint.

Neck of Mutton.—(No. 2.)

Put four or five pounds of the best end of a neck (that has been kept a few days) into as much cold soft water as will cover it, and about two inches over; let it simmer very slowly for two hours: it will look most delicate if you do not take off the skin till it has been boiled.

For sauce, that elegant and innocent relish, parsley and butter (No. 261), or eschalot (No. 294 or 5), or caper sauce (No. 274), mock caper sauce (No. 275), and onion sauce (No. 298), turnips (No. 130), or spinage (No. 121), are the usual accompaniments to boiled mutton.

Lamb.—(No. 3.)

A leg of five pounds should simmer very gently for about two hours, from the time it is put on, in cold water. After the general rules for boiling, in the first chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery, we have nothing to add, only to send up with it spinage (No. 122), broccoli (No. 126), cauliflower (No. 125), &c., and for sauce, No. 261.

Veal.—(No. 4.)

This is expected to come to table looking delicately clean; and it is so easily discoloured, that you must be careful to have clean water, a clean vessel, and constantly catch the scum as soon and as long as it rises, and attend to the directions before given in the first chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery. Send up bacon (No. 13), fried sausages (No. 87), or pickled pork, greens, (No. 118 and following Nos.) and parsley and butter (No. 261), onion sauce (No. 298).

N.B. For receipts to cook veal, see from No. 512 to No. 521.

Beef bouilli,—(No. 5.)

In plain English, is understood to mean boiled beef; but its culinary acceptation, in the French kitchen, is fresh beef dressed without boiling, and only very gently simmered by a slow fire.

Cooks have seldom any notion, that good soup can be made without destroying a great deal of meat; however, by a judicious regulation of the fire, and a vigilant attendance on the soup-kettle, this may be accomplished. You shall have a tureen of such soup as will satisfy the most fastidious palate, and the meat make its appearance at table, at the same time, in possession of a full portion of nutritious succulence.

This requires nothing more than to stew the meat very slowly (instead of keeping the pot boiling a gallop, as common cooks too commonly do), and to take it up as soon as it is done enough. See "Soup and bouilli" (No. 238), "Shin of beef stewed" (No. 493), "Scotch barley broth" (No. 204).

Meat cooked in this manner affords much more nourishment than it does dressed in the common way, is easy of digestion in proportion as it is tender, and an invigorating, substantial diet, especially valuable to the poor, whose laborious employments require support.

If they could get good eating put within their reach, they would often go to the butcher's shop, when they now run to the public-house.

Among the variety of schemes that have been suggested for bettering the condition of the poor, a more useful or extensive charity cannot be devised, than that of instructing them in economical and comfortable cookery, except providing them with spectacles.

"The poor in Scotland, and on the Continent, manage much better. Oatmeal porridge (Nos. 205 and 572) and milk, constitute the breakfast and supper of those patterns of industry, frugality, and temperance, the Scottish peasantry.

"When they can afford meat, they form with it a large quantity of barley broth (No. 204), with a variety of vegetables, by boiling the whole a long time, enough to serve the family for several days.

"When they cannot afford meat, they make broth of barley and other vegetables, with a lump of butter (see No. 229), all of which they boil for many hours, and this with oat cakes forms their dinner." COCHRANE'S Seaman's Guide, p. 34.

The cheapest method of making a nourishing soup is least known to those who have most need of it. (See No. 229.)

Our neighbours the French are so justly famous for their skill in the affairs of the kitchen, that the adage says, "as many Frenchmen as many cooks:" surrounded as they are by a profusion of the most delicious wines and most seducing liqueurs, offering every temptation and facility to render drunkenness delightful: yet a tippling Frenchman is a "rara avis;" they know how so easily and completely to keep life in repair by good eating, that they require little or no adjustment from drinking.