Roasting, or cooking meat by hanging it in front of an open fire, is not so common a process now as it was some twenty years ago, as nearly all modern houses are fitted with shut-up stoves.

The advantages of roasting over baking are - 1st, it is far easier to baste, and, 2nd, the joint is surrounded by fresh air. - (Some modern ovens are, however, admirably ventilated.) In roasting a joint, the first thing to be considered is to get a clear fire, well made up - i.e., not hollow - and this fire should be carefully attended to till the joint is finished. In putting coals on to a roasting fire, pull the coals forward with a shovel, and put the fresh coals on at the back. Take care, in doing this, that you don't knock any coals into the dripping-pan.

The dripping-pan is the vessel placed under the meat to catch the drippings. " Basting" means pouring hot fat from the dripping-pan over the joint from time to time with a spoon. The more you baste the meat, the better it will be. A roasting-jack (see Bottle-Jack and Screen) is a piece of clockwork which is wound up and causes the meat to turn round. This is generally hung on to a hook under the kitchen mantelpiece.

If you have not a roasting-jack, a piece of strong, coarse string will do very well, and almost answers the same purpose; but it requires watching, as, should the meat cease to turn round, it will burn. A strong iron hook should be run firmly into the meat, and then hooked on to the jack or fastened to the string. Get the dripping-pan ready before the joint, and have a little hot melted fat or dripping ready in it at starting. This will soon be very much increased in quantity by the drippings from the joint. Dripping is melted fat, and when it is in any quantity should be partly taken away, as the joint roasts, in order to keep it of a nice colour.

To roast properly, the front of the fire must be bigger than the joint. You cannot roast a large joint before a little fire. Always hang meat with the biggest part downwards: allow for the meat having a tendency to break after cooking when you put the hook in it. For instance, a leg of mutton may be hung safely, when raw, by the split or hole in the bone: but this will give way very often when partially cooked.

When you put down the joint to the fire, put it close at starting, so as to harden the outside, and baste with very hot fat; after some ten minutes, draw back the joint a little. The time, on the average, for beef ana mutton is a quarter of an hour for every pound of meat, or a little longer. This is with a really good fire, and for solid pieces of meat. It is evident that a loin of mutton weighing, say eight pounds, will take no longer, or very little longer, than one weighing four pounds, if you have a good large fire as it is simply twice as long.

The smaller the joint or bird, the more quickly should it be roasted. The joint should be of a rich Spanish mahogany colour outside. Brown the joint by putting it closer to the fire, and never flour it at all. To do so spoils the flavour of the meat, and ruins the gravy made from the sediment of the dripping. The general fault in roasting pork and veal is that it is not roasted enough. Beef and mutton, as I have said, should be allowed a quarter of an hour for every pound, and a little time over, say ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, for small joints. Lamb requires twenty minutes for each pound. Pork and veal require half an hour for each pound up to nine or ten pounds. The management of large joints exceeding this weight is a subject into which we need not here enter.

The almost universal fault with inexperienced cooks in roasting game and poultry is, that they over-cook them, especially ducks and geese, partridges, and indeed all game. The meat on the breast should cut juicy and moist; the breast-bone, when bare after the meat has been cut off, should not have the appearance of having been burnt in the fire. If the stuffing be placed in a goose or a duck (see No. 17) warm, a good-sized goose will not take more than one and a quarter to one and a half hours to roast, and a duck about forty minutes.

You must first see to the colour of the joint, about a quarter of an hour before you send it up. If too pale, put it nearer the fire, and then take the dripping-pan, and carefully pour off all the fat into a basin till you come to the discoloured dregs. This will make the gravy. Then pour into the pan about a pint (for a large joint) of boiling water, or still better, stock (see No. 11), and, so to speak, wash the dripping-pan in this liquid. Rub all the brown specks - which are really dried-up gravy, in substance somewhat like extract of meat - and dissolve them in the liquid; then strain the whole through a small sieve into a saucepan. If the joint has been properly roasted, and the fire been a good one, this gravy will be a nice brown colour. Skim off any grease that may be on the top, and set the saucepan on the side of the fire to keep hot, but do not make it boil up. Next, unhook the joint; place it on a very large hot dish; pour half the gravy into the dish, not over the joint; send up the other half of the gravy, very hot, to be poured over the joint in time for the second help.

Do not unhook the joint till you have seen to the gravy. When you take away the dripping-pan, you must, of course, put a dish under the joint to catch the dripping.

All game and poultry require a fierce, clear fire and constant basting, and should be sent to table direct from roasting, and not be finished long before they are wanted, and then "kept hot." This " keeping hot" is the ruin of inexperienced cooks, and, indeed, of a good many experienced ones.