Why cooking at low heat makes flesh digestible.

Bain-marie: Warrens Pot.

The "Bain-marie" is an old and very simple application of the principle chiefly employed for the heating of sauces and for other purposes where it is desirable to avoid a temperature which might injure a delicate product, and especially any burning of it. It is simply a small thin saucepan suspended within a larger one adapted for the fire, and containing water which, when boiling, or nearly so, suffices to heat to a few degrees below its own temperature the contents of the inner vessel. This resembles the method on which the carpenter's glue-pot is constructed, with which most persons are familiar.

Captain Warren's cooking-pot is a further development of the same principle, which has long been a favourite with many who appreciate excellence and economy combined in the work which it is capable of doing. It is constructed on the plan of the "Bain-marie" just described, but is associated with a steam chamber on the top, to be used or not when required. This latter may be used for the cooking of vegetables, fish, and other foods, thus utilizing the steam formed by the boiling water contained in the larger outside vessel, which heats the inner one. But the inner is used not only for stewing and boiling purposes, but also as a dry cooker; for no steam can enter it from without, however used; that is to say, a fowl or a portion of meat being placed therein can be slowly cooked without water by a process occupying about twice or three times as long as that employed for ordinary boiling or roasting. In this case the flesh furnishes a quantity of liquid, slowly disengaged by low temperature, rising as vapour at first, and becoming condensed, with its own natural juices, into a broth or gravy, in which, at the conclusion of the process, the flesh is found partially or wholly immersed. On the top of this floats more or less fat in a melted state, and this can be removed in the usual manner. No loss whatever takes place by this method. All the albumen, extractives, and juices of the flesh will be found in the inner saucepan when the process is completed. Thus a most admirable and tender Irish stew may be made by placing, say about three pounds of neck of mutton, cut chiefly from the lower half of it in the usual way, or improved, of course, by including some cutlets from the upper, with most of the fat removed, a little onion, sliced, adding no liquid whatever, only a little black pepper and salt to taste. The outside pot should contain sufficient water to form a shallow bath for the inner pot which contains the meat; the water should be boiling at the

The "Bain- marie."

Captain Warren's cooking - pot.

Its use in "dry" cooking1.

No loss by this process.

How to cook an Irish stew thus.

Example of slow cooking at low temperature.

Value of Warren's Pot. 101 commencement of the process, and for about a quarter of an hour afterwards, to antagonize the effect of the cold meat introduced. Then the pot should be removed to the corner of the fire, or over a gas ring, so as to maintain the external bath water at or about boiling point. At the end of five or six hours or so the meat will be found perfectly tender, delicately cooked, full of flavour, and amply supplied with its own excellent gravy. In fact, the cooking has been finally completed by means of a braise consisting of the gravy thus produced. When the melted fat has been removed, the potatoes, which have been partially cooked in the upper chamber or steamer, or in some other vessel separately, should be added to the meat in the inner chamber for about half an hour before serving in the usual manner, and a little stock added if required.

The meat has been cooked at a temperature of about 1850 or 1900 at most, never approaching 2000 : hence its digestibility from the circumstances explained above. If the potatoes for the stew are cooked in the steamer, above the meat, the water must be kept boiling during the latter part of the process, about an hour, to supply steam for the purpose. The above, or a good-sized fowl, can be cooked in a Warren pot of the smallest or least expensive size; but I advise that a fowl should be first boiled in a separate vessel for five minutes only for reasons already given. Some think it an improvement to add about half a pint of warm stock, to make, with the juices which escape, the basis of an excellent sauce when skimmed and thickened. And on the whole I think that poultry maybe generally "boiled" with advantage in about a quart of light stock, when the ordinary process with a saucepan is used; in either case adopting the slow process by low temperature, i.e. about 1700 Fahr., any of the liquor not required for sauce going to the stock-pot for white soups and sauces. And larger portions of meat may be cooked in the same manner in Warren pots of appropriate size.

Cooking of poultry in same manner.

But still lower temperatures suffice if more time be devoted to the cooking; and this is advantageous where the material to be cooked is unusually tough. An illustration of this principle has been familiar to some for many years, in the action of the Norwegian cooking apparatus; but few people know how effective a prolonged moderate temperature is in producing tender and well-cooked viands of various kinds. This apparatus consists of a stout tinned iron cylinder 12 ins. high and 10 ins. in diameter, with a handle like that of a pail, which renders it portable, and a well-fitting cover. It is lined with a close packing of woollen materials 1 1/2 ins. thick, to prevent the escape of heat from the inner vessel, which contains the portion to be cooked. This vessel, also a cylinder, is made of tin, and has a " hot-water jacket" to be filled with boiling water, the only source of heat for the entire cooking operation. And its cavity, measuring 7 ins. in depth and 5 1/2 ins. in diameter, will hold a fowl weighing over two pounds in the vertical position, or the best end of a neck of mutton containing five bones when neatly trimmed; and this latter should be accompanied with a few slices of onion and a little black pepper and salt, nothing else.