Rules And Maxims Of The Kitchen

In our foregoing remarks we have endeavoured to explain the leading principles upon which the art of cookery is founded - principles with which the young cook should become thoroughly acquainted. We now proceed to lay down a series of rules or maxims, relative to the dressing of meat, and the general management of the kitchen. These rules should be well studied, and the most important of them committed to memory. By doing this a cook will save a great deal of trouble and loss of time, and she will also, by her knowledge of the general principles of the art, be enabled to vary, and probably improve the receipts, which she may have occasion to consult. In short, when she knows what must be always done, and what must never be done, she is, in a great measure, mistress of her art, inasmuch as the details will be easily acquired by practice.

Choice And Purchasing Of Butchers' Meat

Inferior joints of the best animals should always be preferred to the prime joints of the ill-fed or diseased beasts. Inferior joints of good meat such as sticking, leg's and shins of beef, shoulders of mutton and veal, may, if well dressed, be made as nourishing and palatable as the superior joints and may be bought much cheaper; but no cooking, however well executed, will ever make bad meat good. Ill-condi tioned beasts, too, are for the most part unhealthy.

21. Beef

Ox beef is considered, truly, the best. Bull beef is coarse, tough, and has a strong, disagreeable smell and taste. Next to ox beef, that of a young heifer (if spayed the better) is preferred. Some persons, indeed, think it is the best. It is the most delicate and tender of all description of beef. Cow beef, particularly a young-cow that has not had more than two or three calves, is very good. The grain is closer, and the fat whiter, than ox beef. Good beef has a fine, smooth, open grain, interlarded with thin streaks of delicate fat; and is of a deep healthy looking red colour. When the fat is of a dirty yellow colour, the meat is not good: it indicates its having been fed upon artificial food, such as oil cake. Grass-fed meat, or that fed upon hay and corn meal, is the best. When beef is old, a horny streak runs between the fat and lean; the harder this is, the older the meat. The flesh is not good flavoured, and eats tough.

Summary Of Directions

Choose meat that has a clear red liver, free from knots and bladders, with kidneys firm, close, and well surrounded with firm, hard fat; the skirts which line the ribs should be full and fat. Meat possessing these qualifications may be depended on as of the first quality; but if the kidney or kernels of an animal have spots resembling measles, as is too frequently the case with pork, the meat is unwholesome.

We have said thus much on the choice of meats, but persons who keep up what is called an establishment, will do best to trust to their butcher, porkman, fishmonger, and poulterer, and not to choose at all, excepting tradesmen, taking care to deal only with the most respectable in the neighbourhood.