Roasting Meat

The handbook of household management ... · Tegetmeier, W. B. · 1894
Source
The handbook of household management and cookery
Status
success · extracted 12 days ago
Not a recipe
No
Ingredients (0)
No ingredients extracted.
Instructions (9)
  1. When a piece of meat is hung before a fire, part of the fat melts and forms the dripping which should be carefully and cleanly preserved, as it constitutes a valuable article of food.
  2. During the process some of the water of the juice of the flesh is dried up; from these two causes the meat loses in weight.
  3. To roast well the meat should be hung up before a brisk bright fire, the first effect of which is to harden the albumen in the outer parts and thus prevent the escape of the nutritious juices.
  4. The heat should then be continued until it has penetrated the inside.
  5. When it is heated the natural red colour of the flesh is changed, and from the hardening of the albumen the meat becomes firm and can be cut in thin slices.
  6. The heat of the fire causes the production of peculiar flavours and odours which distinguish one kind of meat from another.
  7. In roasting it is important that the meat be put down before a bright, clear fire, sufficiently large to heat the whole of the joint at once.
  8. If possible, skewers and spits should not be thrust into the meat, as they make holes through which the gravy escapes.
  9. The time usually allowed for roasting is a quarter of an hour or twenty-minutes for every pound, but this depends on the thickness and also on the size of the joint.
Original Text
Roasting is a mode of cooking meat that is more common in this than in any other country. It is, however, not an economical or advantageous mode of cooking small joints, as they become dried up; and it is exceedingly wasteful in the case of sinewy or tendinous pieces of meat, as it renders a very large proportion of them quite uneatable. Roasting is an advantageous mode of cooking only in cases were the joints are large and where the cost of a large fire is not of importance. Consequently it is not the best suited to the circumstances of the working classes. When a piece of meat is hung before a fire, part of the fat melts and forms the dripping which should be carefully and cleanly preserved, as it constitutes a valuable article of food. During the process some of the water of the juice of the flesh is dried up; from these two causes the meat loses in weight. In some fat joints more than one quarter of the weight is lost, in others much less, as in the case of a leg of mutton which is covered by a skin, and has but little fat to melt away. To roast well the meat should be hung up before a brisk bright fire, the first effect of which is to harden the albumen in the outer parts and thus prevent the escape of the nutritious juices. The heat should then be continued until it has penetrated the inside. When it is heated the natural red colour of the flesh is changed, and from the hardening of the albumen the meat becomes firm and can be cut in thin slices. Underdone meat is not, as is generally supposed, more nutritious than that which is properly cooked. The heat of the fire causes the production of peculiar flavours and odours which distinguish one kind of meat from another. In roasting it is important that the meat be put down before a bright, clear fire, sufficiently large to heat the whole of the joint at once. If possible, skewers and spits should not be thrust into the meat, as they make holes through which the gravy escapes. The time usually allowed for roasting is a quarter of an hour or twenty-minutes for every pound, but this depends on the thickness and also on the size of the joint.
Notes
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