Dried meat

“ The drying flesh acquires a very dark brown color from the smoke and blood left within the tissues. Certain portions of the dry meat, especially those from the flanks and abdominal walls, are quite palatable; they are crisp, and have a rich nutty flavor. The intercostal muscles are also choice portions, while some of the flesh from the haunches is dry and nearly tasteless. The back fat is often dried and smoked, but acquires a disagreeable rancid taste. ”

“ The thick pieces of belly meat, packed in a two-gallon jar and covered with salt or brine, will make a supply of fat pork to cook with beans and other vegetables. The tenderloin makes good roasts, the head and feet may go into head cheese or scrapple, and the trimmings and other scraps of lean meat serve for a few pounds of home-made sausage. In some large families it is found profitable to "corn" a fore quarter of beef for spring and summer use. Formerly it was a common farm practice to dry beef, but now it seems to be more usual to purchase beef which has been dried in large establishments. ”

“ When an animal is killed, the flesh should be properly dried, before boiling down, otherwise the fat will not melt thoroughly, as it will be combined with the water contained in the body. The fat should be separated as well as possible from the meat; it should then be hung in long strips upon a line and exposed in the sun to dry; when nearly dried, it should be cut into pieces of about two inches in length, and placed in a large vessel over a brisk fire, and kept constantly stirred. As the fat boils out from the meat, the residue should be taken out with a pierced ladle ”

“ When dried at a temperature of 212 deg., or thereabouts, it should not lose more than from 70 to 74 per cent. of its weight, whereas bad meat will often lose as much as 80 per cent. The juice of the flesh is alkaline or neutral to test paper. ”

“ The curing process enhances meat flavor and improves shelf life by retarding bacterial growth. Salt and nitrites inhibit bacterial growth and enhance flavor and color; sugar counteracts the hardening effect of salt and also enhances flavor. Beef is generally cured by making corned beef or dried beef using the above-mentioned ingredients.
Corned Beef
Corned beef is generally made from cuts of the round, brisket, plate, or chuck. ”

“ Hence, in preserving meat by drying, too high a temperature must be carefully avoided, or the albumen will become coagulated, and the meat be made insoluble.
The dried flesh of the bison, of the buffalo, and of the deer, forms pemmican, the preparation of which is thus described in Captain Back's Journal:—
"While meat remains in a thick piece, it is impossible to get the middle dried before putrefaction commences; but if the meat be cut into slices, its desiccation may be easily effected. ”

“ Dry or concentrated Mince Meat is made same as above, except that dried apples are used instead of fresh apples, and no liquids are added. Wet Mince Meat is better than the dry and will give better satisfaction. ”

“ The lean of good fresh beef is of a bright red color, a fine close grain, and feels tender to the touch on pinching it between your thumb and finger. The fat is firm and very nearly white. The suet about the kidney, firm and quite white. If, on the contrary, the lean is coarse, tough, and of a dull color, and the fat scanty, yellow, and moist, do not buy that meat for any purpose. The same rules will apply to mutton. If the weather is so cold that the meat is frozen, thaw it by lying it all night or early in the morning in a tub of cold water. ”

“ Coarse-grained meat, and meat streaked with connective tissue or gristle, is sure to be tough. (2) Freshness. Fresh beef is a good red colour, modified, when it is very cold, to a purplish shade. If black or greenish in tint the meat is stale, and its odour will be bad. Meat is flabby after it is killed, but soon grows firm. It is in suitable condition for cooking before this change takes place, or some days after it. ”

“ When your meat, of whatever kind, has been down some time, but before it begins to look brown, cover it with paper and baste on it; when it is nearly done, take off the peper, dredge it with flour, turn the spit for some minutes very quick, and baste all the time to raise a froth—after which, serve it up. When mutton is roasted, after you take off the paper, loosen the skin and peel it off carefully, then dredge and froth it up. Beef and mutton must not be roasted as much as veal, lamb, or pork ”

“ Spread the bottom of the pot with butter, or marrow. Pack in pieces of meat, bone, gristle, the carcases of birds, two or three vegetables cut up in small pieces, two cloves, and a bouquet of herbs.
Cover the meat, etc., with cold water. Put on the lid. Heat slowly, and when it boils set back to simmer for four or five hours.
In preparing meat for this stock, look it over carefully; reject any piece which is not perfectly good, also all stuffing, skin, smoked or burnt pieces. A little beef fat can always be retained, but mutton fat should not be used as it is rank in flavour. ”

“ The lean of fat beef cooked in steaks, with very little salt, is the best, and it should be rather underdone than otherwise. Mutton being reckoned easy of digestion, may be occasionally given, to vary the diet and gratify the taste. The legs of fowl are highly esteemed. It is preferable to have the meat broiled, as much of its nutritive quality is lost by roasting or boiling. Biscuit and stale bread are the only preparations of vegetable matter which are permitted to be given; and every thing inducing flatulency must be carefully avoided. ”

“ In selecting Beef, take that which has a coarse, loose grain, which easily yields to the pressure of finger, or knife; which is a purplish red, and has whitish fat. Ox Beef is best. If the lean is purplish and the fat very yellow, it is bad Beef. If it is coarse-grained and hard to break or cut, it is tough. Stall-fed has lighter fat than grass-fed Beef.
If meat is frozen, lay it in cold water to thaw. A piece of ten pounds, or more, will require all night to thaw. Beef and Mutton improve by keeping. Meat is better for not being frozen, except fresh Pork. ”

“ This exception should be duly noted, inasmuch as it is the one redeeming feature of such proceeding that renders it fairly well adapted for the cookery of such [125] meat as cow-heels, sheeps’-trotters, calves’-heads, shins of beef, knuckles of veal, and other viands which consist mainly of membranous, tendinous, or integumentary matter composed of gelatin. To treat the prime parts of good beef or mutton in this manner is to perpetrate a domestic atrocity. ”

“ In poor beef, the watery part seems to separate from the rest, which lies in a pool of serous bloody fluid. The gravy from such beef is pale and poor in flavor; while the fat, which in healthy beef is firm and of a delicate yellow, in the inferior quality is dark yellow and of rank smell and taste. Beef is firmer in texture and more satisfying to the stomach than any other form of meat, and is usually considered more strengthening. ”

“ If the stew-pan be close shut, it is evident that none of the nutritive principles can escape, and must either be found in the meat itself or in the liquid. The water or gravy in which the meat is stewed, being capable of dissolving the gelatine and albumen, the greater part of them become separated during the simmering process. Now, since the firm texture of the bundles of fibres of the meat is owing to the solid gelatine and albumen glueing them, as it were, together, when they are dissolved and disengaged, the meat must become greatly disorganized. ”

“ All lean trim can be ground as ground beef. Palatable ground beef should have from 15 to 30 percent fat. Most retail ground beef ranges from 20 to 25 percent fat.
MEAT COOKERY
Tender cuts of meat are best cooked with dry heat, as by broiling, roasting, or pan broiling. Less tender cuts of meat are tenderized by cooking with moist heat. Connective tissue is softened and tenderized by cooking slowly in moisture.
Temperature control is very important in meat cookery. Meat loses moisture, fat, and other substances during cooking. ”

“ The reason, therefore, why veal, lamb and young pork are white when cooked is that the large quantity of albumin contained in the fibres hardens, or becomes coagulated. The chief characteristic of young meat is the great proportion of gelatin contained in those parts that afterwards become hard or bony.
The quality of the flesh of animals is influenced considerably by the nature of the food on which they have been fed, for the food supplies the material which produces the flesh. If the food is not suitable and good, the meat will necessarily be inferior. ”

“ Any kind of meat can be used to make a meat-and-potato hash; but, of course, nothing is so good as corned beef. Cold roast, boiled, or broiled beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or tongue can be freed from skin, fat, and bones, seasoned highly with salt and pepper, and cooked like corned beef hash. Even two or three kinds of meat can be used. If it happens that you have a bit of steak, a part of a chop, and perhaps a slice of tongue, use them all. ”

“ If the air cannot be perfectly excluded, it should be packed in dry salt, not for the purpose of preserving it, but to prevent the vegetation of bissus, as, without this precaution, the meat becomes musty from exposure and the action of moisture. Meat preserved by this process may be kept for several years, and merely requires soaking for 24 hours in water, for the purpose of swelling its pores, to give it the appearance and taste of fresh meat, fit for either roasting or boiling. ”

“ To the gravy that is now running from the meat add nothing but a tea-cup of boiling water. Skim it, and send it to table in a boat. Serve up with the beef in a small deep plate, scraped horseradish moistened with vinegar.
Fat meat requires more roasting than lean, and meat that has been frozen will take nearly double the usual time.
Basting the meat continually with flour and water is a bad [71] practice, as it gives it a coddled par-boiled appearance, and diminishes the flavour. ”

“ The drying of salt meat is effected either by hanging it in a dry and well-aired place, or by exposing it at the same time to wood smoke, which gives it a peculiar flavour, much admired in Westphalia hams and Hamburgh beef, and also tends to preserve it, by the antiseptic action of the pyrolignic acid. When meat is to be hung, it need not be so highly salted. ”

“ The object of first crumbing is to dry the surface that egg may cling to it; and where a thin coating is desired flour is often used in place of crumbs.
Larding is introducing small pieces of fat salt pork or bacon through the surface of uncooked meat. The flavor of lean and dry meat is much improved by larding; tenderloin of beef (fillet) , grouse, partridge, pigeon, and liver are often prepared in this way. Pig pork being firm, is best for larding. Pork should be kept in a cold place that it may be well chilled. Remove rind and use the part of pork which lies between rind and vein. ”

“ Before dressing meat it must be well washed and wiped dry; except roasting-beef, the dry outsides of which must be pared off. When meat indicates the least degree of putridity it should be dressed with out delay, else it becomes unwholesome. In the latter case, however, even fish, as well as meat, may be reclaimed, by putting pieces of charcoal into the water with it, when boiled or parboiled.—Tainted meat may also be restored by washing it in cold water, and afterwards in strong chamomile tea, and rubbing it dry with a clean cloth ”

“ Cold is one means of preserving meat from decay. In the markets of northern Russia, the frozen carcases of animals stand exposed for sale in the winter air for a considerable time, and are sawn in pieces, like sticks of wood, as the purchases are made; such meat, when thawed, being entirely fit for food. Beef and pork are preserved by salting down in brine, and in this condition may be carried on long voyages or kept for future use. Salted meat is not as nutritious as fresh, since the brine absorbs its rich juices and hardens its fibres. ”

“ From the cream so prepared butter was made, and was kept for several weeks without a particle of salt, and was eaten by members of the college. I also wish to show another method by which meat can be preserved and cheaply transported. In South America, about Buenos Ayres and the River Platte, many cattle are killed simply for the hides and fat; the flesh is thrown away. Now, if this flesh were cut up in small pieces, and put into the preserving liquid for a night, it would, even in that hot climate, keep good for some time. ”

“ The white meats, such as Chicken and Veal, are best for invalids, because less stimulating than dark meats.
Liver contains so much oil that it is not good for invalids or dyspeptics.
The digestibility and healthfulness of meat depends very much upon the mode of cooking. Boiled meats are most easily digested, when properly boiled. Roasting, broiling, and baking, are healthful modes of cooking, but frying is a very pernicious mode of preparing meats, the reason of which will be explained hereafter. ”

“ The result of this process is, that size and weight are attained by a deposit of fat, rather than by the construction of muscular fiber, which alone is true meat; while, as a necessary consequence, the characteristic flavor and other qualities of fully developed beef and mutton are greatly wanting in modern meat.
Much more unsatisfactory is the supply of vegetable and dairy produce to our great city, particularly of the former. ”