Sauteing is cooking in a small quantity of hot fat. Fowl, birds, game, beef, veal, fish, etc., are sauted. Fowl are separated into pieces at the joints; beef, veal, game and fish are all divided into small pieces. When the article is cooked upon one side, turn and cook the other side. The pieces are cooked on the under side, when drops of juice appear on the upper side. The cooking of articles of considerable thickness, as joints of chicken and thick slices of fish, is finished in the oven. The article must be basted with hot fat occasionally during the oven cooking. Fillets, tournedos and other small shapes of red meats are always finished in the frying pan and the cooking should be quickly done, otherwise even the tenderest of such meats become toughened. Clarified butter is the fat usually selected for sautes; and only a small quantity is used. Salt pork fat or olive oil is preferable for thick slices of fish, which require longer cooking.

After red meats, veal or chicken are cooked and removed from the pan, the fat is poured off, broth or wine is added to the pan and the whole is simmered a few moments to loosen the glaze from the pan. This alone or with the admixture of a previously made sauce is served with the dish. Often veal or lamb is cooked in this sauce at a gentle simmer, after having been sauted. This cooking may be done in the oven or at the back of the range, the dish being covered meanwhile.

Clarified Butter For Sauteing

The flavor of eggplant, small fillets of beef and many other articles is considered particularly choice if the article be cooked in butter. Butter as it is purchased contains much solid matter that causes it to burn very easily. If these solid bodies be removed, the danger of burning the resultant oil is much lessened. To prepare the butter, put it in a saucepan of good size (it is liable to foam) over a very moderate fire; remove scum as it rises, and let stand over the fire (without heat enough to color it in the least) until the melted butter looks clear and solid material has settled to the bottom of the saucepan; carefully pour the top of the liquid butter from the sediment below, through a piece of cheesecloth. This clarified butter will keep in good condition much longer than ordinary butter. Olive oil may always be used in the place of clarified butter.