General Directions for Cooking Meats

Ingredients

• three tablespoons of butter melted in water
• 49 jures the flavor of pepper
• two eggs well beaten
• salt

Directions

1. The great point in cooking meats is to have them tender without wasting the juices. In boiling, allow from eighteen to twenty minutes for every pound of meat. Boil slowly in as little water* as possible ; the meat will be more savory and ten- der. Put fresh meat in hot, salted meat in cold, water. Never let meat stand in the water after it is done. Strain off all scum rising. The sirloin is best for roasting. The round is best for boiling. The juice which flows from the meat is the best gravy; season, and if too thin, sift in a little flour. If too greasy, skim.

2. Mrs. Bonsall.

3. Roasting. — Have a brisk oven, rub a very little flour over the joint, but neither salt nor pepper. Salt draws out the juices, which it is your object to keep in, and parching in-

4. jures the flavor of pepper. This applies also to broiling and frying. Pepper after an article is cooked. Carefully turn your roast once, that it may be browned on both sides.

5. Broiling — A brisk, clear fire is indispensable to this mode of cooking. Let the gridiron come to a gradual heat that it may not be burning hot on the surface. Rub the bars with a bit of clean suet and lay on your steak or chops, which should not be more than three-quarters of an inch in thickness. If too thick it will be overdone on the outside while inside it is still raw. Turn it but once while broiling, and when it is a delicate brown outside with a rare line inside it is finished. Lay it on a well heated platter and dress with butter and a little salt. If you have allowed your fire to get too low, do not attempt to use the gridiron, but feed your fire anew, and if you cannot wait for it to burn low again, broil in a frying pan, following the same directions. The essential point in broiling is to have the pan so hot that it will sear the surface of the meat at once, and thus prevent the escape of its juices.

6. Frying. — Professional cooks agree that the perfection of frying-fat is equal parts lard and beef drippings, and yet there are families where the drippings are never looked after, and all the rich fat from roast beef, pork, corn beef, and soup- bones goes to waste.

7. Batter for Frying. — Three, cups of sifted flour, mixed with three tablespoons of butter melted in water; pour the butter off the water into the flour first, then enough of the water to make a soft paste, which beat smooth, then more warm water till it is thick enough to mask the back of the spoon dipped into it, and salt to taste ; add, the last thing, the whites of two eggs well beaten.

8. Bread Crumbs for Frying. — Never allow stale bread to go to waste. Dry it thoroughly in a slow oven, roll and sift it and keep in a jar ready for use. It is better than cracker crumbs for cutlets, etc., and costs nothing.