Skip to main content
Main

To Boll Meat

A method of cooking large joints of meat by boiling them in cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

To Boll Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim and wash the meat thoroughly.

  2. Skewer or bind the meat into shape if necessary.

Boil and simmer

  1. Cover the meat with cold water in a pot.

  2. Bring the water to a boil over moderate heat.

  3. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.

  4. Simmer gently until the meat is cooked through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

Large joints of meat
Provides the main substance of the dish, becoming tender as its connective tissue softens during gentle cooking.
Cold water
Surrounds the meat and conducts heat evenly, cooking it gently from the outside in.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. A hard, rolling boil toughens meat fibres and can make the surface break up, while gentle simmering lets collagen slowly soften into tender meat with a clearer broth.

“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.

More boiled meat recipes

You might also like