Since roast or rather baked meats so often play the chief part in American dinners, a few directions will be useful in connection with their cooking. The object in cooking meat is to prepare it for easy mastication and complete digestion; and it should be accomplished with the least possible waste of the valuable juices of the meat. The roasting of meat before the fire is not often possible in ordinary kitchens, but with a well managed oven the same result can be attained. If meat is placed before a slow fire, or in a cool oven, the little heat that reaches it serves only to draw out its juices, and with them its nutritious elements. The albumen of its cut surfaces coagulates at the temperature of a bright, clear fire, or a hot oven, and thus seals up the juices so that only a part of them escape, and those are collected in the form of a rich brown, highly flavored crust, upon the surface of well roasted meat. A good temperature for baking meat is from 3200 to 4000 Fahr. If the meat is put into a very hot oven for a few moments to harden the outside, the heat can subsequently be moderated, and the cooking finished more slowly, so that the meat will be sufficiently well done, but not burned. Meats should be roasted about twenty minutes to a pound, to be moderately well done; the fire should be clear, and steady, in order that an equal heat may reach the joint and keep its interior steam at the proper degree of heat; after the right length of time has elapsed, care being taken meantime that the meat does not burn, it may be tested by pressing it with the fingers; if it is rare it will spring back when the pressure is removed; if it is moderately well done the resistance to pressure will be very slight; and if it is thoroughly cooked it will remain heavy under the fingers; never test it by cutting into it with a knife, or puncturing it with a fork, for in this way you waste the rich juices. If you wish to froth roast meat, dredge a little flour over its surface, and brown it a few moments before serving it. If it is to be glazed, brush it with clear stock concentrated to a paste by rapid boiling, or dust a little powdered sugar over it, and in both cases return it to the oven to set the glaze.

Roast Loin Of Veal

Take out the chine, or back-bone, from a loin of veal weighing about six pounds, being careful to leave the piece of meat as whole as possible; chop up the bones and put them in a dripping pan with two ounces of carrot, one ounce of turnip, and quarter of an ounce of parsley; stuff the veal with a forcemeat made as in receipt No. 93, roll it up neatly, tie it firmly with stout cord, lay it on the vegetables in the pan, and roast it one hour and a half. When done take it from the pan, and keep it hot while you prepare the gravy by putting half a pint of hot water in the pan, boiling it up once, and straining it; or if desirable thicken it with a tea-spoonful of flour smoothly dissolved in two table-spoonfuls of cold water and stirred with the gravy.