To Bake Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the oven
Prepare a hot fire, adding small pieces of coal as needed.
Open the damper to draw heat into the oven and close the ventilator.
Use a thermometer to ensure the oven reaches 240°F (115°C).
Prepare and bake the meat
Clean the joint of meat and weigh it to calculate baking time: 10 minutes per pound, or 15 minutes per pound for boneless meat.
Place the meat on a hot-water tin, fill the lower tin half full of warm water, and cover with the upper tin.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Protein that firms and shrinks as it heats, so its weight largely sets the cooking time.
- Warm water
- Fills the hot-water tin, creating humid heat around the joint that slows surface drying.
The step that matters
Check the oven temperature before the meat goes in. Meat cooked in a cool oven heats unevenly and can turn dry or tough. A thermometer shows the real temperature, because a coal fire's heat rises and falls as the fuel burns.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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