Trying out Fat—Extending the Flavor of Meat—Meat Stew—Meat Dumplings—Meat Pies and Similar Dishes—Meat with Starchy Materials—Turkish Pilaf—Stew from Cold Roast—Meat with Beans—Haricot of Mutton—Meat Salads—Meat with Eggs—Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding—Corned Beef Hash with Poached Eggs—Stuffing—Mock Duck—Veal or Beef Birds—Utilizing the Cheaper Cuts of Meat.
"To be a good cook means the knowledge of all fruits, herbs, balms and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, savory in meats. It means carefulness, inventiveness, watchfulness, willingness, and readiness of appliance. It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry; it means much tasting and no wasting; it means English thoroughness, French art, and Arabian hospitality; it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and always ladies (loaf-givers), and are to see that everybody has something nice to eat."—JOHN RUSKIN.
(In these directions a level spoonful or level cupful is called for.)
A double boiler is the best utensil to use in trying out small portions of fat. There is no danger of burning the fat, and the odor is much less noticeable than if it is heated in a dish set directly over the fire.
Common household methods of extending the meat flavor through a considerable quantity of material which would otherwise be lacking in distinctive taste are to serve the meat with dumplings, generally in the dish with it, to combine the meat with crusts, as in meat pies or meat rolls, or to serve the meat on toast and biscuits. Borders of rice, hominy, or mashed potatoes are examples of the same principles applied in different ways. By serving some preparation of flour, rice, hominy, or other food rich in starch with the meat we get a dish which in itself approaches nearer to the balanced ration than meat alone and one in which the meat flavor is extended through a large amount of the material.
5 pounds of a cheaper cut of beef. 4 cups of potatoes cut into small pieces. 2/3 cup each of turnips and carrots cut into 1/2-inch cubes. 1/2 onion, chopped. 1/4 cup of flour. Salt and pepper.
Cut the meat into small pieces, removing the fat; try out the fat and brown the meat in it. When well browned, cover with boiling water, boil for five minutes and then cook in a lower temperature until the meat is done. If tender, this will require about three hours on the stove or five hours in the fireless cooker. Add carrots, turnips, onions, pepper, and salt during the last hour of cooking, and the potatoes fifteen minutes before serving. Thicken with the flour diluted with cold water. Serve with dumplings (see below). If this dish is made in the fireless cooker, the mixture must be reheated when the vegetables are put in. Such a stew may also be made of mutton. If veal or pork is used the vegetables may be omitted or simply a little onion used. Sometimes for variety the browning of the meat is dispensed with. When white meat, such as chicken, veal, or fresh pork is used, the gravy is often made rich with cream or milk thickened with flour. The numerous minor additions which may be introduced give the great variety of such stews found in cookbooks.
2 cups flour. 4 teaspoonfuls baking powder. 2/3 cup milk or a little more if needed. 1/2 teaspoonful salt. 2 teaspoonfuls butter.
Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Work in the butter with the tips of fingers, add milk gradually, roll out to a thickness of one-half inch, and cut with biscuit cutter. In some countries it is customary to season the dumplings themselves with herbs, etc., or to stuff them with bread crumbs fried in butter, instead of depending upon the gravy to season them.
A good way to cook dumplings is to put them in a buttered steamer over a kettle of hot water. They should cook from twelve to fifteen minutes. If it is necessary to cook them with the stew, enough liquid should be removed so that they may be placed upon the meat and vegetables.
Sometimes the dough is baked and served as biscuits over which the stew is poured. If the stew is made with chicken or veal it is generally termed a fricassee.
Meat pies represent another method of combining flour with meat. They are ordinarily baked in a fairly deep dish the sides of which may or may not be lined with dough. The cooked meat, cut into small pieces, is put into the dish, sometimes with small pieces of vegetables, a gravy is poured over the meat, the dish is covered with a layer of dough, and then baked. Most commonly the dough is like that used for soda or cream-of-tartar biscuit, but sometimes shortened pastry dough, such as is made for pies, is used. This is especially the case in the fancy individual dishes usually called patties. Occasionally the pie is covered with a potato crust in which case the meat is put directly into the dish without lining the latter. Stewed beef, veal, and chicken are probably most frequently used in pies, but any kind of meat may be used, or several kinds in combination. Pork pies are favorite dishes in many rural regions, especially at hog-killing time, and when well made are excellent.
If pies are made from raw meat and vegetables longer cooking is needed than otherwise, and in such cases it is well to cover the dish with a plate, cook until the pie is nearly done, then remove the plate, add the crust, and return to the oven until the crust is lightly browned. Many cooks insist on piercing holes in the top crust of a meat pie directly it is taken from the oven.
This dish presents an excellent way of using up small quantities of either cold beef or cold mutton. If fresh tomatoes are used, peel and slice them; if canned, drain off the liquid. Place a layer of tomato in a baking dish, then a layer of sliced meat, and over the two dredge flour, pepper, and salt; repeat until the dish is nearly full, then put in an extra layer of tomato and cover the whole with a layer of pastry or of bread or cracker crumbs. When the quantity of meat is small, it may be "helped out" by boiled potatoes or other suitable vegetables. A few oysters or mushrooms improve the flavor, especially when beef is used. The pie will need to be baked from half an hour to an hour, according to its size and the heat of the oven.
Macaroni cooked with chopped ham, hash made of meat and potatoes or meat and rice, meat croquettes—made of meat and some starchy materials like bread crumbs, cracker dust, or rice—are other familiar examples of meat combined with starchy materials. Pilaf, a dish very common in the Orient and well known in the United States, is of this character and easily made. When there is soup or soup stock on hand it can be well used in the pilaf.
1/2 cup of rice. 3/4 cup of tomatoes stewed and strained. 1 cup stock or broth. 3 tablespoonfuls of butter.
Cook the rice and tomatoes with the stock in a double boiler until the rice is tender, removing the cover after the rice is cooked if there is too much liquid. Add the butter and stir it in with a fork to prevent the rice from being broken. A little catsup or Chili sauce with water enough to make three-quarters of a cup may be substituted for the tomatoes. This may be served as a border with meat, or served separately in the place of a vegetable, or may make the main dish at a meal, as it is savory and reasonably nutritious.
This dish provides a good way of using up the remnants of a roast, either of beef or mutton, The meat should be freed from fat, gristle, and bones, cut into small pieces, slightly salted, and put into a kettle with water enough to nearly cover it. It should simmer until almost ready to break in pieces, when onions and raw potatoes, peeled and quartered, should be added. A little soup stock may also be added if available. Cook until the potatoes are done, then thicken the liquor or gravy with flour. The stew may be attractively served on slices of crisp toast.
Dry beans are very rich in protein, the percentage being fully as large as that in meat. Dry beans and other similar legumes are usually cooked in water, which they absorb, and so are diluted before serving; on the other hand, meats by the ordinary methods of cooking are usually deprived of some of the water originally present—facts which are often overlooked in discussing the matter. Nevertheless, when beans are served with meat the dish is almost as rich in protein as if it consisted entirely of meat.
Pork and beans is such a well-known dish that recipes are not needed. Some cooks use a piece of corned mutton or a piece of corned beef in place of salt or corned pork or bacon or use butter or olive oil in preparing this dish.
In the Southern States, where cowpeas are a common crop, they are cooked in the same way as dried beans. Cowpeas baked with salt pork or bacon make an excellent dish resembling pork and beans, but of distinctive flavor. Cowpeas boiled with ham or with bacon are also well-known and palatable dishes.
2 tablespoonfuls of chopped onions. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter or drippings. 2 cups of water, and salt and pepper. 1-1/2 pounds of lean mutton or lamb cut into 2-inch pieces.
Fry the onions in the butter, add the meat, and brown; cover with water and cook until the meat is tender. Serve with a border of Lima beans, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and a little chopped parsley. Fresh, canned, dried, or evaporated Lima beans may be used in making this dish.
Whether meat salads are economical or not depends upon the way in which the materials are utilized. If in chicken salad, for example, only the white meat of chickens especially bought for the purpose and only the inside stems of expensive celery are used, it can hardly be cheaper than plain chicken. But, if portions of meat left over from a previous serving are mixed with celery grown at home, they certainly make an economical dish, and one very acceptable to most persons. Cold roast pork or tender veal—in fact, any white meat can be utilized in the same way. Apples cut into cubes may be substituted for part of the celery; many cooks consider that with the apple the salad takes the dressing better than with the celery alone. Many also prefer to marinate (i.e., mix with a little oil and vinegar) the meat and celery or celery and apples before putting in the final dressing, which may be either mayonnaise or a good boiled dressing.
Occasionally eggs are combined with meat, making very nutritious dishes. Whether this is an economy or not of course depends on the comparative cost of eggs and meat.
In general, it may be said that eggs are cheaper food than meat when a dozen costs less than 1-1/2 pounds of meat; for a dozen eggs weigh about 1-1/2 pounds and the proportions of protein and fat which they contain are not far different from the proportions of these nutrients in the average cut of meat. When eggs are 30 cents a dozen they compare favorably with a round of beef at 20 cents a pound.
Such common dishes as ham and eggs, bacon or salt pork and eggs, and omelette with minced ham or other meat are familiar to all cooks.
The beef is roasted as usual and the pudding made as follows:
3 eggs. 1 pint milk. 1 cupful flour. 1 teaspoonful salt.
Beat the eggs until very light, then add the milk. Pour the mixture over the flour, add the salt, and beat well. Bake in hissing hot gem pans or in an ordinary baking pan for forty-five minutes, and baste with drippings from the beef. If gem pans are used they should be placed on a dripping pan to protect the floor of the oven from the fat. Many cooks prefer to bake Yorkshire pudding in the pan with the meat; in this case the roast should be placed on a rack and the pudding batter poured on the pan under it.
A dish popular with many persons is corned-beef hash with poached eggs on top of the hash. A slice of toast is sometimes used under the hash. This suggests a way of utilizing the small amount of corned-beef hash which would otherwise be insufficient for a meal.
Housekeepers occasionally use up odd bits of other meat in a similar way, chopping and seasoning them and then warming and serving in individual baking cups with a poached or shirred egg on each.
Another popular way to extend the flavor of meat over a large amount of food is by the use of stuffing. As it is impossible to introduce much stuffing into some pieces of meat even if the meat is cut to make a pocket for it, it is often well to prepare more than can be put into the meat and to cook the remainder in the pan beside the meat. Some cooks cover the extra stuffing with buttered paper while it is cooking and baste it at intervals.
Mock duck is made by placing on a round steak a stuffing of bread crumbs well seasoned with chopped onions, butter, chopped suet or dripping, salt, pepper, and a little sage, if the flavor is relished. The steak is then rolled around the stuffing and tied with a string in several places. If the steak seems tough, the roll is steamed or stewed until tender before roasting in the oven until brown. Or it may be cooked in a casserole or other covered dish, in which case a cupful or more of water or soup-stock should be poured around the meat. Mock duck is excellent served with currant or other acid jelly.
A popular dish known as veal or beef birds or by a variety of special names is made by taking small pieces of meat, each just large enough for an individual serving, and preparing them in the same way as the mock duck is prepared.
Sometimes variety is introduced by seasoning the stuffing with chopped olives or tomato. Many cooks prepare their "birds" by browning in a little fat, then adding a little water, covering closely and simmering until tender.
When the housekeeper attempts to reduce her meat bill by using the less expensive cuts, she commonly has two difficulties to contend with—toughness and lack of flavor. It has been shown how prolonged cooking softens the connective tissues of the meat. Pounding the meat and chopping it are also employed with tough cuts, as they help to break the muscle fibers. As for flavor, the natural flavor of meat even in the least desirable cuts may be developed by careful cooking, notably by browning the surface, and other flavors may be given by the addition of vegetables and seasoning with condiments of various kinds.
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