Cooking equipment

“ I have already mentioned several points of detail where fuel could be saved in our kitchen-ranges, viz., by great attention to the close fitting of the ash-pit and fire-grate doors, the use of double covers to saucepans and boilers, the use of sand on the hot-plate to prevent the escape of so much heat from that part; and, beyond these, an important point in securing economy is the separation of those culinary processes which require different gradations of heat. The three main parts of the ordinary cooking apparatus are the oven for baking and roasting, and the boiler, and the hot-plate. ”

“ In selecting a ready-made cooker certain points should be considered. See that the parts fit closely together, are simple and strong in construction; that there are no seams or pockets in the kettles which would be difficult, if not impossible, to get clean; that the kettles are a suitable size, namely, not too large, if they are to cook food for a small family, and not too small to ensure sufficient heat for proper cooking ”

“ Rapidity is its chief attribute. By this rapidity in cooking there is a saving of fuel, and as the utensils are taken directly from the stove, as are the casseroles, and used on the tables, there is the same saving of service time. These glass utensils bring out the flavors in all kinds of foods; they do not absorb odors or greases; they are very easy to keep clean; there is never any burn to remove and one can always see inside the utensil to find out how the food is faring! ”

“ The last, but by far the most important of the kitchen requisites that we are called upon to consider is the apparatus which is used for cooking, heating water, etc., usually known as the kitchen range or kitchener, names which originally had a distinctive import, but which have lost much of their primary significence, and are now applied without much discrimination to cooking appliances of every kind, whether the fuel used be coal or gas. ”

“ The fireless cooker is primarily a fuel saver. Secondarily, it has developed into an absent treatment cooker. That is, the food can be cooking while the lady of the house is airing the baby or at church or at club entertainments or while the cook is cleaning the kitchen, laundry and pantry. Thirdly, it cooks thoroughly and longly without the added expense of fuel or effort.
It was first made with a box and with excelsior and padding but the manufacturers came to the rescue as they always do to supply a demand and the comfortable fireless cooker was born. ”

“ Utensils for Gas Cookers.
It is most important when cooking by gas to choose the right kind of utensils. They should be thin and wide, rather than deep. A deep kettle takes longer to boil and therefore costs more to boil than a shallow one.
Block tin, enamel ware and earthenware casseroles and fireproof china should be used; the two latter whenever possible, because by cooking and serving in one dish you save labour in washing up and generally have the food served hotter. Also food cooked in earthenware tastes better than that cooked in metal pans. ”

“ The beautifully finished light, handy, and convenient porcelain-enamelled saucepans and stewpans and aluminium cooking pots used on modern gas stoves and ranges, would have been just as unsuitable on the open fires of the older grates as what are now regarded as the curios of the kitchen would be deemed to be in modern culinary operations. In almost every house there are to be found obsolete utensils, some of which are valued on account of their great age, others because of their unusual forms, and some because of the beauty of workmanship and the costly materials of which they have been made. ”

“ Use saucepans with tightly fitting lids and short handles. Those made of aluminum or earthenware are preferable. [161] Jam jars or large tins tightly covered may be used.
Bring the food to boiling point on the gas cooker or kitchen range and while boiling place it at once in the box. Some foods require a certain amount of cooking previous to being placed in the Fireless Cooker. (See table below.)
Wrap the cooking utensil in newspaper, and place in the prepared nest in the Fireless Cooker. ”

“ Such machines are usually large and therefore take up more space than the ordinary kitchen can afford. Likewise the care and cleaning of them require more labor than the washing of dishes for a small family entails. Large quantities of hot water are needed to operate mechanical dish washers, and even where they are installed, the glassware, silver, and cooking utensils must, as a rule, be washed by hand.
17. FIRELESS COOKER.--A device that has proved to be really labor-saving is the fireless cooker, one type of which is shown in Fig. ”

“ But the new appliances for the electric kitchenette are like toys, they are so fascinatingly contrived. You are crazy to have ice cream or whipped cream with which to employ the electric kitchen power unit which can perform all these miracles, and you are led into gustatorial and epicurean extravagances by cooking, boiling, baking and grilling at the same time on the new stove. A whole dinner can be cooked on the dining table with these new ranges even if you have no kitchenette! ”

“ The size of the cooker must depend upon the amount of cooking needed, but it is no economy to have a very small one, because when the oven is in use it should be employed for almost everything. The average cook bakes a milk pudding in the oven [156] and cooks vegetables and hashed mutton and stewed fruit each on a boiling tap, and probably uses the griller as well, and wonders why the gas bills are so high. ”

“ A gas-cooker is undoubtedly the best for paper-bag cookery, as the ease with which the heat is regulated, and a steady even degree maintained, the little attention it requires while the food is cooking, make it ideal for all ways of preparing food, but especially for the method now under consideration. Gas is absolutely perfection for paper-bag cookery. ”

“ The change in methods of cooking is plainly evinced in many of our common kitchen utensils. In olden times the pots and kettles always stood on legs, and all skillets and frying-pans and saucepans stood on slender legs, that, if desired, they might be placed with their contents over small beds of coals raked to one side of the hearth. A further convenience to assist this standing over coals was a little trivet, a tripod or three-footed stand, usually but a simple skeleton frame on which the skillet could be placed. ”

“ An ordinary coal heated kitchen-range will answer very well for paper-bag cookery, if a little care and attention be given to the matter. The cook must firmly impress on [Pg 17] her mind that the bags must not be laid on a solid baking sheet, but on a wire grid, which may be cheaply acquired at an ironmonger's; that the oven must be heated to 220° Fahr. before the food is put into it—a cooking thermometer is not an expensive item; and that, though the heat may be lessened after some twenty minutes, the fire must not be allowed to go down and then be built up again to complete the cookery. ”

“ Of late years, great improvements have been made in the construction of ovens for baking of meat, called roasting ovens, which cause great economy in the expenditure of fuel; and, in large public establishments, where a number of the same kind of joints are required, it is the best plan of cooking. In the Receipts will be found the time required by each for baking, but, in a general way, for meat, hot ovens are the best; for poultry, not so hot as meat; and pastry, according to its kind. ”

“ Canning with this oven is simplicity itself, as there is no need to lift the big containers to the cooking surface.
Many people prefer the fireless-cooking, oven gas stoves. These are excellent when made by the best manufacturers and certainly help the servantless house greatly. ”

“ For cooking you will need an iron pot and boiling kettle, tin kettles fitting inside of one another, a frying-pan with a handle like the kettle, a coffee-pot, some knives and tin plates, cups, spoons, forks and deep dishes, and above all an oyster broiler. ”

“ In most of the stoves the fireless cooking saves time and saves your food. Basting is unnecessary; you get what you pay for in weight of the roast and lose less than by any other process of cookery. In some stoves twelve or fifteen minutes of electricity are all that is needed ”

“ In an electrically fitted kitchen what do we see? A clean, bright-looking oven and a hot plate for boiling and simmering, and probably a grill, completed by a plate heater, all standing on a table placed in a good light and conveniently near the sink. The cook may sit at ease peeling apples and put out a hand to alter the heat of the oven or hot plate, or to move a saucepan. If she is a forgetful [180] person, a red lamp reminds her of the fact that she has not switched off the current from any portion of the cooking apparatus no longer needed. ”

“ Always try to get one that has a large oven in proportion to the size of the range. There should be plenty of dampers that can be used to hasten the fire or to check it, so that it will keep twelve hours, if necessary. Ranges are made that will do this. Learn all the characteristics of your range, and treat it well; then it will be an invaluable friend to you.
In the kitchen, as in every other part of the house, it is economy to furnish with good articles. Poor cooking utensils are never cheap. In buying iron utensils, be sure to get those that are thoroughly finished. ”

“ In the factory many refinements are necessary to make a commercial article which will attract the eye as well as satisfy the sense of taste. The usual dark colored, rough, home-made article will not command a sale over a grocer’s counter alongside of that made in a modern commercial kitchen. Here, sorting tables, washing machine, scalder, cyclone for pulping, steam-jacketed kettle, tanks with coils, or vacuum pan for cooking, finishing machine, bottle washing, and filling machine, are all necessary. ”

“ With the particular stove in question, the novice soon becomes an expert. As much of the cooking can be done in the oven, not so large a surface stove need be bought; a small family can actually use a two-burner surface. ”

“ The temperature in a fireless cooker is below boiling most of the time. It is, therefore, a device for simmering food, and should be used for cooking meats, fruits, vegetables and cereal dishes which require or are improved by long, slow cooking.
Since the food has to be shut in a fireless cooker to keep in the heat, fireless cookery is a method of steaming of food. For this reason, it has a slightly different flavor from food baked in the oven, much as fried food differs from roasted food. ”

“ The one here illustrated is placed over a fire; water in the copper tank below is turned to steam, which circulates about the food and condenses on the conical top, from which it runs toward the sides of the cooker, instead of dripping into the food, and returns to the tank. When the water falls below a certain level, a whistle blows vigorously to call for “more water.”
About six years ago, the “fireless” cooker made its appearance. It does not cook without fire, but it does retain the cooking heat. Many models are now obtainable, some in box form with several deep cooking compartments. ”

“ In paper-bag cookery, the most varied assortment of dishes will lie amicably side by side on the grid supplied with the gas-cookers, and no mingling of flavours or spoiling of one or the other will result. Cooking them thus altogether, an immense saving in time and in expense for heating is effected. Even the savoury onion will cook placidly by the side of a bag of gooseberries, without imparting its flavour to the fruit. ”

“ Even if nothing more than a paraffin stove is to be had, still the paper-bag cook need not despair. Longer time will be needed to get the oven placed on top of a paraffin stove to the necessary degree of heat, but by remembering this, and maintaining the same steady heat, paper-bag cookery may be managed much more satisfactorily in such an oven than ordinary cooking could possibly be. ”

“ The fireless cooker is a device containing cooking kettles which are surrounded by some poor conductor. When food is heated thoroughly, the heat can be retained for a number of hours by placing the hot food in the fireless cooker. ”

“ A built-up fireplace in the middle of the floor is the only fixture. A large flat iron pan for cooking, or, if the parties are luxurious, they may possess two such utensils, and sport two fireplaces, by which means they can boil their mutton and water for their tea at the same time. A basin to hold milk, and a good large jug with a spout for the same purpose, and for the convenience of boiling it at the fire while the big pan is on, comprise all their kitchen and table service. ”

“ While we should be able to adapt ourselves to circumstances, to improvise double boilers, steamers and ovens when necessary, it is at the same time true economy to have an abundance of cooking utensils if possible. ”

“ Every thrifty housekeeper should possess and use a fireless cooker. As has been mentioned, it saves fuel, prevents the strong odor of food permeating all parts of the house, lessens work and care in cooking, prevents burning and scorching, and provides workers and picnickers with warm lunches. A fireless cooker can be made satisfactorily at home with little expenditure of effort and money. ”

“ It gives its best and almost exclusive service in the baking oven, for poultry done in pot roasting fashion or for stewing fruit, and other articles which require to be cooked slowly under close cover. There are few cooks who do not know that the application of a moderate, even heat for certain food materials produces far better results than if quick heat is applied. For such cases the use of earthenware cooking utensils is to be strongly recommended, because by their aid an application of heat, such as will insure gentle simmering, steaming, or baking, is assured. ”