Part 6

Wash the tongue, put it into as small a cooker-pail as will easily hold it, add the other ingredients and fill the pail with boiling water, using one teaspoonful of salt to each quart of water. Let it boil for twenty minutes or half an hour, depending upon the size of the tongue. Put it into a cooker for ten hours or more. If not perfectly tender, reheat it to boiling point and cook it for from two to four hours longer in the hay-box. Plunge it into cold water and remove the skin. Serve it hot with caper sauce, using the liquor in which the tongue was boiled in place of water, to make the sauce.

XIII

LAMB AND MUTTON

Spring lamb is the meat of lambs from six weeks to three months old. It is obtainable in March and throughout the spring. Yearling is lamb one year old. The flesh of lamb is lighter in colour than that of mutton and the bones are pinker. It may be distinguished from mutton, also, by the smaller size of the cuts, which are otherwise the same in mutton and lamb. Mutton, as all dark meats, may be served rare; but lamb, being lighter, is classed with white meats in this respect, and should be thoroughly cooked. The rank flavour of mutton is greatly reduced if the pink membrane, which surrounds the animal, is pulled off before cooking. The fat of mutton has a strong, disagreeable flavour, and most of it should be removed. It will not be good for any cooking purposes as veal, beef, and pork fat are.

_Cuts of Mutton._ The favourite cuts are the rib and loin chops and the leg, but as other parts of the sheep are much cheaper, it is well to know their possibilities. Shoulder, boned and tied into shape, will, when cooked in the hay-box or cooker, make a very good substitute for the leg, while shoulder of lamb makes a good roast for small families who grow tired of perpetual steak and chops.

TABLE SHOWING THE WAYS IN WHICH THE VARIOUS CUTS OF MUTTON AND LAMB MAY BE COOKED IN THE HAY-BOX OR COOKER

1. Neck, stews and broth.

2. Chuck, stews, broth, meat pie, casserole of rice and meat, hash.

3. Shoulder, braising, plain or boned and stuffed, casserole of rice and meat, hash.

4 and 5. Loin chops, cooked as veal cutlets, breaded or plain.

6. Flank, soups, stews.

7. Leg, braised or boiled.

OTHER PARTS OF THE ANIMAL, USED FOR FOOD, WHICH MAY BE COOKED IN THE HAY-BOX OR COOKER

Heart, braised, plain or stuffed.

Liver, braised, or breaded as veal cutlets.

Tongue, boiled.

Kidneys, stewed.

In the chapter on the Insulated Oven directions are also given for roasting some cuts of mutton and lamb. They are not included in this list, since the oven is not an accompaniment of every cooker.

Boiled Leg or Shoulder of Mutton

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, put it into a cooker-pail with boiling salted water enough to cover it, and to permit of at least three or four quarts of water being used, the amount depending upon the size of the leg. Boil it for half an hour and cook it in the cooker for six hours or more. The broth should be saved for soup stock and gravy. Serve it with brown gravy or with caper sauce. Shoulder will not require more than twenty minutes boiling, but will take the full time in the cooker. Lamb may be treated in the same manner.

Braised Leg or Shoulder of Mutton

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, roast it in a hot oven till brown, or dredge it with salt, pepper, and flour, and brown it in a frying-pan; put it, while still hot, into a cooker-pail with enough boiling water to half cover it, or more. Bring it to a hard boil, while tightly covered, put it at once into a cooker for six hours or more. Serve it with brown gravy, saving the remaining broth for soup stock. Lamb may be treated in the same manner.

Mutton Stew

2 cups meat ²⁄₃ cup tomato 1 onion 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 2 cups potatoes 1 teaspoon salt ¹⁄₈ teaspoon pepper 1¹⁄₂ cups water, or more ¹⁄₄ cup butter, lard or beef fat ¹⁄₃ cup flour

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, cut it into three-quarter-inch cubes, put it into a cooker-pail with all the other ingredients, except the fat and flour. The potatoes should be pared and cut into one and one-half-inch cubes. Bring all to a boil, boil it for five minutes and put it into a cooker for from four to six hours. Make a brown sauce, using the fat, flour, and liquor from the stew. Heat the stew in this till boiling. Or the meat may be dredged with the flour and fried in the fat until meat and flour are brown, before being put into the cooker. If cooked meat is used, one and one-half hours in the cooker will be enough, unless the meat is very tough, in which case it may be cooked as long as raw meat. The addition of one green pepper makes a good variation of this stew.

Serves five or six persons.

Chestnut Stew

2 cups raw mutton 2 onions 2 tablespoons fat 3 tablespoons flour 3 cups blanched nuts 2 teaspoons salt ¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper Water

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, cut it into three-quarter-inch cubes; peel and slice the onions. Dredge the meat with the flour, brown it and the onions in a frying-pan with any fat suitable for cooking. Put all the ingredients into a cooker-pail, barely cover them with boiling water, and let the stew boil five minutes before putting it into a cooker for four hours or more.

Serves six or eight persons.

Syrian Stew (Yakhni)

2 cups raw mutton 2 tablespoons fat 3 tablespoons flour 2 cups string beans 2 onions 2 cups tomatoes 1¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt ¹⁄₆ teaspoon pepper Water

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, cut it into cubes, dredge it with the flour, and brown it in the fat. Put all the ingredients together, scraping from the frying-pan all of the flour and fat. Add enough water to barely cover them, let them boil for five minutes, and put them into the cooker for six hours or more, depending upon the beans. If they are old and tough they may require more than six hours to cook.

In Syria this stew is always served with boiled or steamed rice.

Serves six or eight persons.

Okra Stew

2 cups raw mutton 2 tablespoons fat ¹⁄₈ cup flour 2 onions 2 cups tomatoes 2 cups okra 1¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt ¹⁄₆ teaspoon pepper Water

Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, cut it into cubes. Wash and cut the okra in pieces, dredge it and the meat with the flour and fry them, till brown, in the fat. Put all the ingredients into a cooker-pail, add enough water to barely cover them, boil them for five minutes, and put them into a cooker for four hours, or more.

Serves six or eight persons.

Syrian Stuffed Cabbage

1 cup raw chopped meat 2 tablespoons fat ¹⁄₃ cup raw rice 2 teaspoons salt ¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper 1 head cabbage ¹⁄₂ lemon

Strip off the leaves from a head of cabbage, throw them into boiling water, and let them stand till they are wilted. Mix the remaining ingredients, except the lemon, using for the meat either mutton or beef. Lay a cabbage leaf on a plate, remove the thickest part of the midrib, so that it will roll. Spread on it a rounded teaspoonful of the mixture and roll it like a cigarette. Do the same with the other leaves, packing each one, as it is finished, into a pan which will fit over a cooker-pail, unless a pail is used which will be nearly filled by the cabbage. The rolls must be carefully packed or they will float and unroll when the water is added. Cover them with boiling water, bring all to a boil, and boil it for five minutes, then put it directly into a cooker, if the pail is full, or over boiling water if not, and leave it for from four to six hours. Take the rolls out carefully with a cake turner or skimmer, lay them in a platter, and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them. They are usually served as the meat dish for luncheon.

Serves six or eight persons.

Casserole of Rice and Meat

4 cups cooked rice (1 cup raw) 2 cups cooked mutton 1 teaspoon salt ¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon grated onion 1 tablespoon chopped parsley ¹⁄₄ cup breadcrumbs 1 egg Stock or water

Line a greased mould of one and one-half quarts’ capacity with three cups of the rice. Remove all the fat from the meat, chop it fine, and mix it with the other ingredients, adding enough stock or water to barely keep it from crumbling. Pack the meat into the mould and cover it with the remaining cupful of rice. Grease the cover and put it on. Stand the mould in a large cooker-pail of water to two-thirds of its depth, or, if it is shallow, prop it on a rack, so that the water will reach half its depth; boil it for fifteen minutes, and cook it for one hour or more in the cooker. Turn it out carefully on to a hot platter, and pour tomato sauce around, but not over it.

Serves six or eight persons.

Ragout of Cold Mutton

2 cups cold mutton 1 onion, sliced 1 cup mutton stock 2 tablespoons butter ¹⁄₂ can peas 1 teaspoon salt ¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper 1 head of lettuce Farina balls

Cut the mutton into one-inch cubes. Put all the ingredients except the lettuce and farina balls into a cooker-pail together, cover it closely, and when boiling put it into a cooker for one hour. Serve it on a platter garnished with lettuce leaves and farina balls.

Serves four to six persons.

XIV

VEAL

Veal varies greatly with the age of the calf from which it is taken. It should be pink, with firm, white fat. Pale, flabby veal comes from calves which have been killed too young, or bled before death, and is likely to be tasteless and stringy when cooked. The older veal grows, the more like beef it appears. The cuts are larger and the colour is darker and more like the red of beef. Veal can be purchased the year round, but the best season for it is spring and summer. Almost all parts of the calf are tender, but the cheaper cuts correspond with the cheaper cuts of beef, except the cutlets or steaks, which are taken from the same part of the animal as the round of beef, and command a good price. Veal, like other white meats, should be thoroughly cooked. Its delicacy commends it for many purposes, but it often requires the addition of pork, or high seasoning, to give it flavour.

TABLE SHOWING THE WAYS IN WHICH THE VARIOUS CUTS OF VEAL MAY BE COOKED IN THE HAY-BOX OR COOKER.

1. Head, Jelly, soups, and broths, calf’s head à la terrapin. 2. Neck, Stews, soup, veal pie. 3. Chuck, Veal loaf, stews, soup, veal pie. 4. Shoulder, Braised, stuffed and braised. 5. Shanks, Soups. 6. Ribs, Braised or breaded as veal cutlets. 7. Breast, Soups, stews, veal loaf. 8. Loin, Braised or breaded as veal cutlets. 9. Flank, Soups or stews. 10. Leg, Breaded cutlets or plain cutlets.

OTHER PARTS OF THE CALF, USED FOR FOOD, WHICH MAY BE COOKED IN THE HAY-BOX OR COOKER.

Brains, Stewed and creamed. Heart, Braised, plain or stuffed. Liver, Braised, or stewed. Tongues, Boiled. Sweetbreads, Stewed or creamed. Kidneys, Stewed or creamed.

Breaded Veal Cutlets

2 lbs. veal cutlets Fine, dry breadcrumbs Salt Pepper 1 egg 1 pt. water or stock ¹⁄₂ cup butter or drippings ¹⁄₃ cup flour 1 tablespoon chopped parsley ¹⁄₂ teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

Wipe the cutlets with a clean, wet cloth. Cut them into pieces suitable for serving, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Dip them into sifted crumbs, then into the egg, which has been beaten slightly and mixed with one tablespoonful of water. Dip the cutlets again into the crumbs and fry them until they are a rich brown, in one-half the butter or drippings. Put them into a small cooker-pail or pan. Make Brown Sauce, using the remaining ingredients. Pour the sauce over the cutlets and, when boiling, stand the pail in a large cooker-pail of boiling water. Put it into a cooker for from two to four hours, depending upon the age and toughness of the veal. Reheat them before serving.

Serves six or eight persons.

Plain Veal Cutlets

Wipe the cutlets with a wet cloth, trim off any tough membranes, and cut them into pieces suitable for serving. Brown them in a very hot frying-pan with butter or rendered fat, being careful not to let them scorch. Sprinkle them well with salt and pepper and put them into a small cooker-pail or pan. Pour a little boiling water into the frying-pan and, when all the brown juice which has hardened on the pan has been dissolved, pour this over the cutlets. Add enough boiling water to barely cover them and, when boiling, stand the pail or pan in a large cooker-pail of boiling water. Put it into the cooker for from two to four hours, depending upon the age and toughness of the veal. Reheat them before serving, if necessary.

Veal Loaf

2 cups minced veal 2 eggs ¹⁄₄ cup melted butter 1 cup soft bread crumbs ¹⁄₈ teaspoon pepper 1¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt 2 tablespoons chopped parsley 2 tablespoons chopped onion ¹⁄₄ inch slice fat salt pork ¹⁄₂ teaspoon ground sage

Wipe meat from the cheaper cuts of veal, remove the fat and toughest membranes, and put it through a fine food-chopper. Mix the seasonings with the crumbs, add the melted butter, mix these with the veal, add the pork and, lastly, the eggs. Put the mixture in a well-buttered one-quart brown bread mould or water-tight can. Spread it level but do not pack it in the mould. Stand it in a large cooker-pail with enough boiling water to come at least two-thirds of the way up the mould. Boil it for twenty minutes and put it into the cooker for four hours. Serve it either hot or cold.

Serves eight or ten persons.

Sweetbreads

Wash and soak the sweetbreads in cold water for one hour. Plunge them into boiling salted water (one teaspoonful of salt for each quart of water). Boil them two minutes and put them into the cooker for two hours. Plunge them into cold water, remove the membrane which covers them, and they are then ready to be broken in pieces for creamed sweetbreads or rolled in crumbs and egg and fried.

Creamed Sweetbreads

Make a white sauce, using part milk and part cream, if desired. To each cupful of sauce add two cupfuls of prepared sweetbreads broken into small pieces, let them come to a boil and serve them at once, or put them into a cooker to keep warm until they are needed.

Calf’s Heart

Calf’s heart may be cooked as beef’s heart, except that it will not require so long to cook. Ten minutes is sufficient to allow for cooking over the flame, and ten hours in the hay-box.

Calf’s Liver

Prepare and cook it in the same manner as beef’s liver, allowing only four hours for it to cook in the hay-box.

Veal Kidney

These are almost as delicate as sweetbreads. They may be cooked for two hours in the same manner as beef kidney, or creamed or fried as sweetbreads.

Calf’s Head à la Terrapin

1 calf’s head Salt Water 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour ¹⁄₈ teaspoon pepper ¹⁄₂ cup cream 4 egg yolks Madeira Wine

Carefully clean a calf’s head and put it into a cooker-pail. Cover it with boiling water, add one teaspoonful of salt to each quart of water and let it boil for twenty minutes. Put it into a cooker for nine hours or more. Cool it and cut the face meat into small dice. Make a cupful of sauce using the butter, flour, pepper, one-half teaspoonful of salt and one cupful of the water in which the head was boiled. Add the cream and, when boiling, the raw yolks of two eggs which have been slightly beaten. Stir it constantly for about two minutes until the eggs have cooked. Then add two tablespoonfuls of Madeira wine and the yolks of two hard-cooked eggs cut into quarters.

Serves five or six persons.

XV

PORK

Whatever may be true of the extent to which pork and pork products are wholesome for particular individuals, there can be no doubt that its delicious flavour will insure its being eaten by a large number of people who either do not know or do not care whether it agrees with them or not. Experiments undertaken under the management of the Department of Agriculture[1] have resulted in the conclusion that pork is as thoroughly and easily digested, under normal conditions of health, as any meat, although personal experience would indicate that pork does not agree with some people as well as other kinds of meat. It is specially important, however, that pork be very well cooked or well cured, in order to insure against the danger from trichinosis. We are told by B. H. Ransom[2] that it is only by eating raw or insufficiently cooked or cured pork that there is thought to be any danger of this disease. Curing is the process of smoking, salting, or combined salting and smoking of meat, which acts as a preservative for it. We thus see that, not only because it is a white meat, as mentioned in the chapter on veal, pork and pork products should be cooked until very well done.

[1] Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin 193, 1907.

[2] U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Circular 108, 1907.

As pork is the fattest of all meats, it is suitable for a cold-weather diet and will probably be found to agree better at that season. For whatever reason it may be, fresh pork seems to be less wholesome than when cured, bacon having the reputation of being one of the most easily digested of all fats.

Young pigs (four weeks old) are frequently dressed and roasted whole.

Pork is usually cut for market in the manner illustrated in figure No. 10.

The back is fat and is used for salt pork or lard. The ribs are used for spare-ribs, and the loin or chine, which is the backbone with its adhering meat, is used for roasts or chops. The legs are roasted, if fresh, or they are cured, by salting and smoking, for hams, sugar being used in the salting process, which gives the name “sugar-cured hams”; the shoulders are treated in the same way and may be used very much as hams, although the flesh is not so thick and the proportion of bone is greater. The belly is cured for bacon, the head and feet are soused or pickled, and the trimmings of fat and lean are chopped, highly seasoned, and used for sausage, or combined with meal and made into scrapple.

_To select fresh pork._ The meat should be firm and of a pale red colour, the fat hard and white and the skin white and clear. Yellowish fat, with kernels in it, and soft, flabby flesh are an indication of inferior pork.

Boiled Ham or Shoulder

Put a ham or shoulder in a large enough cooker-pail to allow of its being covered with eight or ten quarts of water. A special oblong or extra deep utensil may be required for cooking hams and such very large cuts of meat. Put in the ham, add cold water to fill the utensil, and bring it to a boil. This will serve to draw out a good deal of the salt from the meat and will not extract much of the meat flavour, if the ham be whole. A cut ham may be covered with boiling water which will seal the pores on the surface of the meat and help to retain its juices. Allow the ham to simmer for twenty minutes, or, if very large, for one-half hour, then put it into a cooker for seven hours or more. The larger the ham the greater the quantity of water must be, a fifteen-pound ham taking as much as fifteen quarts of water. Success in cooking large cuts of meat will depend to a great extent upon using sufficient water.

Fresh Pork with Sauerkraut

Wash and gash a two-pound piece of fresh, lean pork into slices. Put it with one quart of sauerkraut into a cooker-pail of boiling salted water. Let it boil for fifteen minutes, tightly covered. Place it in a cooker for eight or ten hours. Reheat till boiling, drain it, and serve the pork in a platter, with the sauerkraut arranged as a border; or put the sauerkraut into a vegetable dish. It grows cold quickly and must be served promptly and on hot dishes.

Serves six or eight persons.

Head Cheese

Cut a hog’s head into four pieces. Remove the brain, ears, skin, snout, and eyes. Cut off the fat to try out for lard. Put the lean and bony parts to soak in cold water over night to extract the blood. Clean the head thoroughly, put it into a cooker-pail, cover it with cold water, boil it for fifteen minutes and put it into the cooker for ten hours or more. If the meat will not then slip readily from the bones, bring it again to a boil and put it into the cooker until it will (perhaps six hours more). Remove the bones and hard gristle, drain off the liquor, reserving it for future use. Put the meat through a food-chopper, return it to the cooker-pail with enough of the liquor to cover it, and salt, pepper, and powdered sage to taste. Let it boil, put it into a cooker for an hour or more, then pour it into a shallow pan or dish; cover it with cheese-cloth and a board with a weight, to hold it in place. When cold it will be solid, and is ready to serve, thinly sliced.

Souse

Treat a hog’s head in the same manner as for head cheese, adding a little vinegar with the other seasonings.

Scrapple

Treat a hog’s head in the same manner as for head cheese, up to the point where the liquor is added to the chopped meat. The heart and liver may also be cooked with the head, and any scraps or bloody parts of the meat may be soaked and cooked with it. When the meat is freed from bone, gristle, and skin, and chopped finely, and all the liquor is added to it, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, thyme or marjoram, and brought to a boil. Enough corn-meal, or corn-meal and buckwheat flour in the proportion of one-third cupful of buckwheat to two-thirds of a cupful of corn-meal, is added, to make the mixture of the consistency of corn-meal mush. About one cupful of the two combined will be required for each three pints of the pork mixture. Let this come to a boil, stirring it constantly; boil it five minutes, and put it into a cooker for four hours or more. Pour it into a mould or bread pan and, when cold, slice and fry it like sausage.

Pickled Pigs’ Feet

Wash the pigs’ feet, soak them in warm water for one-half hour, then scrub and scrape them well; soak them again for twelve hours in cold, salted water, and clean them again. If necessary, singe them; remove the toes, and bring them to a boil in salted water to more than cover them. Boil them five minutes, and cook them for ten hours or more in a cooker. If not tender, reheat them till boiling, and cook them again. Remove them from the water, split them with a cleaver, unless this is done before cooking, pack them in a jar, and cover them with hot, spiced vinegar, preferably made from white wine. They are eaten cold, or dipped in batter and fried.

XVI

POULTRY

In buying poultry select that which has clean, unbroken skin and is as fat as possible. Young chickens have often a darker appearance than old, owing to the fact that there is less fat under the skin or that the skin is thinner. They have few hairs, many pin-feathers, and the end of the breast-bone, toward the tail, is limber and cartilaginous. In old chickens (fowl) this bone is stiff, there are many hairs, few pin-feathers, and the scales on the legs are hard and horny. The wing joint is firm in old chickens, but is sometimes broken by poultry dealers in order to make the purchaser think the poultry younger than it is.