Frying pan

“ A frying-pan is worth anything to a campaigner; fish, flesh, or fowl are all equally well cooked in it. Coffee can be roasted, pancakes made, stews prepared, and a whole host of useful offices performed. Do not forget your frying-pan. It is a good plan to have a “parasol joint,” as it is called, made in the handle close to the pan, this will, by bending the handle a little, admit of its being folded across the pan, and thus more easily stowed away. ”

“ Have the clean frying-pan warm, but not hot, when the meat goes in. Turn the slices as they brown. When done, take the pan over to the sink or table, remove the meat to a hot dish and set where it will keep warm.
Strain the grease left in the pan through a bit of tarlatan or coarse muslin into a cup. Wipe the frying-pan clean, pour in the strained fat and return to the fire. If there is not enough to cover the bottom a quarter of an inch deep, add a tablespoonful of butter. Break the eggs one at a time in a cup, and when the fat hisses put them in carefully. ”

“ Break the eggs into a bowl, beat with a dover beater, add the salt, pepper, and milk, and stir well together. Set the frying-pan over a slow fire, and put the butter in it to' melt and heat. Pour the mixture from the bowl into the frying-pan, and with a spoon begin at once to scrape from the sides of the pan toward the centre, keeping the mixture from sticking to the pan and allowing it to cook evenly. When the mixture has become of a jelly-like consistency, take the frying-pan from the fire, turn the contents out on a hot platter, and serve at once. ”

“ Like the Gridiron, the Frying-pan requires a clear but not a large fire, and the pan should be allowed to get thoroughly hot, and be well covered with fat, before meat is put into it. The excellence of frying very much depends upon the sweetness of the oil, butter, lard, or fat that may be employed. ”

“ A frying-pan should be about four inches deep, with a perfectly flat and thick bottom, 12 inches long and 9 broad, with perpendicular sides, and must be half filled with fat: good frying is, in fact, boiling in fat. To make sure that the pan is quite clean, rub a little fat over it, and then make it warm, and wipe it out with a clean cloth.
Be very particular in frying, never to use any oil, butter, lard, or drippings, but what is quite clean, fresh, and free from salt. Any thing dirty spoils the look; any thing bad-tasted or stale, spoils the flavour ”

“ Most of the so-called light weight individual outfits center around the above as the essentials with variations in shape to best suit the particular outfit for easy nesting.
The preparation of food by frying is not the best thing for the stomach, for the average bit of fried stuff is enveloped in tough greasy coating. However most cooks use this method to some extent, so provision for frying must be made. The frying pan is preferably made of steel and in use is to be rested on a bed of coals raked to one side of the cooking fire. ”

“ Frying.—“Frying ranks with boiling and stewing, rather than with grilling. When properly conducted, it is one of the processes in which the heat is communicated by convection, the medium being hot fat instead of the hot water used in the so-called, and mis-called ‘boiling’ of meat. I say ‘when properly conducted,’ because it is too often very improperly conducted in domestic kitchens. This is the case whenever fish, cutlets, &c., are fried on a merely greased plate of metal, such as a common frying-pan. Pancakes or omelettes may be thus fried, but no kind of fish or meat. ”

“ BROILED MEATS. IT has been said that the frying-pan has ruined more American digestions than all the other hurtful agencies combined. It is certainly true that while the process of frying properly performed upon certain substances does not of necessity, make them unwholesome—the useful utensil does play altogether too important a part in our National cookery. Broiled meats are more wholesome, more palatable, and far more elegant. Certain things should never be fried. That beefsteak should never make the acquaintance of the frying-pan is a rule without an exception. ”

“ Those who are fortunate enough to possess a frying-pan will find the following receipts very useful:—Cut in small dice half a pound of solid meat, keeping the bones for soup; put your pan, which should be quite clean, on the fire; when hot through, add an ounce of fat, melt it and put in the meat, season with half a teaspoonful of salt; fry for ten minutes, stirring now and then; add a teaspoonful of flour, mix all well, put in half a pint of water, let simmer for fifteen minutes, pour over a biscuit previously soaked, and serve. ”

“ To fry easily one must have, in addition to the deep, straight-sided frying-pan, a frying-basket, made from galvanized wire, with a side handle. The bale handles are apt to become heated, and in looking for something to lift them, the foods are over-fried. The frying-pan must be at least six inches deep with a flat bottom ”

“ PAN-BROILING Clean the meat, remove excess fat, and place the meat in a very hot frying pan without any fat. Sear the meat on both sides, then cook more slowly until done. When thick chops are broiled, stand them on end to brown the edges. Keep the pan free from fat. ”

“ It differs from frying in this: that to fry any object requires fat enough to immerse that object; while to sauté it, requires just enough to prevent it from scorching.
Vegetables, omelets, etc., are sautéd, and not fried.
Meat or fish cooked in a frying-pan with a little butter or fat, is sautéd, and not fried; but the term fried is most generally used, the other being only known to practitioners.
To sauté requires a brisk fire; the quicker an object is cooked by sautéing the better. ”

“ The iron pan is heated, and the meat is cooked by heat directly communicated from the hot iron. Such frying, in fact, is an imitation of broiling, and usually an unsuccessful imitation. There should always be at least enough fat to cover the surface of the pan, and it always should be made as hot as possible without burning, before beginning to fry. To put cold fat and cold pan and cold chop on the stove and let them all heat together is always a mistake sure to result in a greasy, juiceless chop with burnt fat. Whatever and however you fry, first heat the fat. ”

“ Frying is easier than broiling, the fat, oil or butter in which the article is fried must be boiling, but have ceased to bubble before it is put in the pan, or it will be greasy and black: there is now a new description of fryingpan, called a sauté pan, and which will be found extremely convenient for frying small cutlets or collops. ”

“ Although broiling with a double wire-broiler over or under bright coals is the approved way, it can be accomplished in a hot pan when coals are not accessible. In this instance a frying-pan is heated very hot, then rubbed with suet to prevent the meat from sticking, and the meat is turned frequently as in the other method. ”

“ And as all devils must be grilled or fried quickly, without burning them in a hot oven, it is well to understand exactly what is meant. To my mind a frying-pan is better than an oven, because you can watch the process and see that the gravy does not waste. And the very first thing you have to guard against with an inexperienced or poor cook is her either wasting all the mixture for the gravy, or else her drying it up and burning the meat, or scorching the bones, and making them uneatable. The operation of grilling must be performed quickly, and needs the best attention of the operator. ”

“ Deep frying or frying in a saucepan, means that there must be fat enough to cover what is fried, and a pan deep enough to contain it. It is economical, for the fat can be used over and over again, and, if sufficiently hot, does not soak into the food fried, which consequently comes out quite dry and without any of the greasy moisture of frying-pan cookery. In the long run less fat is used than for ordinary dry frying ”

“ Do not beat the mixture, but stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon for five minutes, and it will be sufficiently firm. Butter well a frying-pan, take a kitchen ladle that contains the equivalent of a gill, and with this put the preparation into the pan in twelve parts; be careful they do not touch one another, and let them get a good golden color on each side for four minutes. Dress them on a folded napkin, and serve. ”

“ Heat a frying-pan very hot, melt a teaspoonful of butter in it, and lay in two or three sandwiches; when one side is brown, turn it over and cook the other; take from the pan and lay in the oven in a pan on a paper till all are ready. ”

“ An occasional shake will prevent the meat from sticking. At the end of the operation all the fat should be carefully removed.
Frying.—Lard, oil, butter, or dripping may be used for frying. There are two methods of frying—the dry method, as in frying a pancake, and the wet method, as when the thing fried is immersed in a bath of hot fat. In the former case a frying pan is used, in the other a frying kettle or stewpan. It is usual for most things to have a wire frying basket; the things to be fried are placed in the basket and immersed at the proper temperature in the hot fat. ”

“ You can make very good bread in a frying-pan. You must mix the dough up stiff so that when the pan is nearly upright it won't tumble out. You fix the pan up with a prop behind it so that the dough faces the fire, quite close, and you draw some more fire behind it so that the back is warmed as well. ”

“ Pan broiling is cooking the food in a hissing-hot frying pan without fat. It is employed where it is impossible to broil, and may be better accomplished where two frying pans are used, and the food turned from one to the other every ten seconds for the first minute and afterwards occasionally, as in broiling. ”

“ Iron kettles and frying pans are excellent for many things. Some of the uses of a nice smooth iron frying pan are to bake a round cake or a thick pie or a pudding in, to scallop corn or potatoes, or to scald milk. ”

“ But that same fresh air brings appetite and we must see how that appetite is to be appeased.
Take a frying-pan. It should be of aluminium for lightness; though a good stout iron one will help you make good girdle-cakes, if you get it hot and drop the flour paste on it. You must find some other way of making girdle-cakes, and if you take an iron frying pan with you, don't say that I told you to.
Though it is obviously necessary that a frying-pan should have a handle, I was bound to tell Gertrude that I do not find it convenient to take handled saucepans when I go camping. ”

“ Our kettle for tea was soon boiling, and by the aid of our frying-pan, the most useful of all cooking utensils, the dried provisions we had brought with us were converted into a savoury stew, seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper, and thoroughly enjoyed by us. Trevor pronounced it jolly fun, and declared that he should never grow tired of living as we then were doing. Never go across wild countries without a portable frying-pan, you can boil water in it, cool, boil, stew, fry, and even bake, without any other appliance than a frying-pan and a little fire and water. ”

“ Fried.—Toast carefully in the oven a few thin slices of bread with the crusts cut off, and then rub them down or pass them through a colander. Put a liberal allowance of lard into a stewpan or frying pan, make it very hot, and take care that the fat is perfectly clear and transparent. Fry the prepared crumbs, taking care not to overdo them, and drain them before the fire very thoroughly and completely, as the whole success of fried crumbs consists in their being sent to table perfectly dry and quite hot. ”

“ However, there is a way of using the frying pan so that practically no harm is done. Grease the pan very lightly, just enough to prevent the flesh from sticking. Make the pan very hot and place the meat in it. Turn the meat frequently. ”