Horsemeat

“ If the corned beef is very salty change the water several times. While the meat is hot, separate gristle and excess fat from the lean. Line a bread pan with tough paper or a strip of cheesecloth, lay the pieces of lean meat in the pan so that the fibers of the meat run lengthwise, and add about 1⁄2 cup of the meat broth. Cover the meat with paper or cheesecloth, and press it down with a heavily weighted pan or board. Chill overnight. Turn the pressed meat out of the pan, slice very thin across the grain, and serve with horseradish sauce or a spicy relish. ”

“ A ROUND OF BEEF STEWED BROWN.—Take a round of fresh beef; the larger it is the more tender it will be: a small round is always, comparatively, hard and tough. Remove the fat; with a sharp knife make [70] deep cuts or incisions all over the meat, and stuff into them a seasoning of finely minced onions, mixed with powdered mace, nutmeg, and a little pepper and salt. Then go all over the meat with the drippings or cold gravy of roast beef, and dredge it slightly with flour. Have ready an iron dutch-oven and its lid, well heated by standing up both lid and oven before the fire. ”

“ Parsley is the most universal garnish for all kinds of cold meat, poultry, fish, butter, cheese, and so forth. Horseradish is the garnish for roast beef, and for fish in general; for the latter, slices of lemon are sometimes laid alternately with the horseradish. Slices of lemon for boiled fowl, turkey, and fish, and for roast veal and calf's head. Carrot in slices for boiled beef, hot or cold. Barberries, fresh or preserved, for game. Red beetroot sliced for cold meat, boiled beef, and salt fish. ”

“ BEEF.—Good beef has an open grain, and a tender, oily smoothness; a pleasant carnation color, and clear white suet, betoken good meat; yellow suet is not so good.
PORK.—If young, the lean will break in pinching, and if you nip the skin with your nails, it will make a dent; the fat will be soft and pulpy, like lard. If the lean be tough, and the fat flabby and spongy, feeling rough, it is old, especially if the rind be stubborn, and you cannot nip it with your nails. Little kernels, like nail-shot, in the fat, are a sign that it is measly, and dangerous to be eaten. ”

“ There are many sentimental and often religious objections to the use of horse meat, but experience has shown that it is wholesome and nutritious. Horse meat is characteristic in containing more natural sugar, commonly known as glycogen, than any of the other ordinary meats used for human consumption. It approaches in its content of sugar some of the shell-fish flesh, such as that of the lobster. Practically all of the horse meat which is prepared in this country is exported to Europe. ”

“ Make other incisions into which to crowd a force-meat made of finely chopped salt pork mixed with twice the bulk of bread-crumbs, and seasoned with herbs, allspice, onion, and vinegar. Fasten the meat securely in shape with a stout band of cotton cloth, lay it in a pot, pour over it three cups of boiling water, cover closely, and cook slowly for three hours, or until tender. Turn the meat once. Thicken the gravy left in the pot with browned flour, and pass with the meat. ”

“ An old campaigner will always contend that meat cooked in this way is the most palatable. Indeed it is hard to conceive of how to impart a more delicious flavor to fresh beef than, after a hard day's ride, by broiling it on a long stick before the right kind of a fire, taking care to pin pieces of fat upon it to make gravy; then with pepper and salt, which can be easily carried, a magnificent meal can be made, if enough is issued to keep a man cooking and eating half the night. ”

“ Take the fat from the top of your cold stock. Pick out some of the best pieces of meat—about a cupful—and [529] set aside. Add a pint of boiling water to the stock, and boil slowly, with the bones and the rest of the meat, for nearly an hour. Chop the meat reserved from the stock; make into force-meat with fine crumbs, seasoning with onion, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and binding with beaten egg. Flour your hands and make this into round balls. Roll them in flour; set in a floured pie-dish, not touching each other, and leave in a quick oven until crusted over. Let them cool. ”

“ French Stew, or Pot au Feu.—Put three pounds of fresh meat into three quarts of cold water, with two tea-spoonfuls of salt. When it begins to simmer, add a gill of cold water, and skim thoroughly. Then add a quarter of a pound of liver, a medium-sized carrot sliced, two small turnips, two middle-sized leeks, half a head of celery, one sprig of parsley, a bay leaf, one onion with two cloves stuck in it, and two cloves of garlic. Simmer five hours. Strain the broth into a soup-dish, and serve the meat and vegetables on a platter. If more water is needed, add that which is boiling. ”

“ The tongue may be cut up in small pieces with the meat, or cut up and mixed with the brains for a side-dish. The skin of the head is the best part, and should be cut up carefully, leaving as much fat adhering to it as you can. As soon as the head is taken up, put to the broth in which it was boiled a five-pound knuckle of veal and the same amount of lean beef, adding all the bones and trimmings of the head; a half-dozen cloves, a quarter of an ounce of allspice, and the same of whole black pepper; boil five hours, skim well, and keep closely covered. ”

“ BOILED BEEF. When the water boils put in the meat, whether beef or mutton, and take off the scum as it rises. If the scum be suffered to sink, it will stick to the meat, and spoil its colour. Turnips, greens, potatoes, or carrots with the beef, and caper sauce with the mutton.
BOILED CUSTARD. Set a pint of cream over a slow fire, adding two ounces of sugar, and the rind of a lemon. Take it off the fire as soon as it begins to simmer; as the cream cools, add by degrees the yolks of eight eggs well beaten, with a spoonful of orange water. ”

“ The heart and liver may also be cooked with the head, and any scraps or bloody parts of the meat may be soaked and cooked with it. When the meat is freed from bone, gristle, and skin, and chopped finely, [125] and all the liquor is added to it, it is seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, thyme or marjoram, and brought to a boil. Enough corn-meal, or corn-meal and buckwheat flour in the proportion of one-third cupful of buckwheat to two-thirds of a cupful of corn-meal, is added, to make the mixture of the consistency of corn-meal mush. ”

“ Take a good hogs, calves, or lambs liver, and boil it: being cold, mince it very small, or grate it, and fearce it through a meal-sieve or cullender, put to it some grated manchet, two penny loaves, some three pints of cream, four eggs, cloves, mace, currans, salt, dates, sugar, cinamon, ginger, nutmegs, one pound of beef-suet minced very small: being mixt all together, fill a wet napkin, and bind it in fashion of a ball, and serve it with beaten butter and sugar being boil’d. ”

“ Cut Beef, Veal, Ham, Tongue, and Breasts of Poultry, with a sharp knife, very thin; Mutton, Lamb, and Pork rather thicker.
Never rise from your seat to carve; never cut across the grain of the meat, that is, not across the ribs of beef, as I have seen some persons do, and Mr. B. tells me is often done at clubs, but it is only those do so who do not know how to carve or appreciate the true flavor of the meat. ”

“ As meat is composed of several substances, fibrine, albumen, gelatin, fat and the juices, it is necessary to understand the various methods of cooking in order to secure the best results. Meat has its season as well as many other foods. Pork is better in autumn and winter; veal in the spring and summer; fowl in autumn and winter; lamb in the summer and autumn; mutton and beef may be used any time. Meat should not be allowed to remain in the paper in which it comes from market, as it absorbs the juices and injures the flavor. ”

“ Take a hinder Leg of Beef and a pair of Marrow Bones, boil them in a great Pot with water and a little Salt, when it boiles, and is skimmed, put in some whole Spice, and some Raisins and Currans, then put in some Manchet sliced thin, and soaked in some of the Broth, when it is almost enough, put in some stewed Prunes, then Dish your Meat, and put into your Broth a little Saffron or red Saunders, some white Wine and Sugar, so pour it over your Meat, and serve it in ”

“ Sheep are handled in the same way. The dipping corrals are situated on different parts of the estancia in selected positions, and when these are at a long distance from the farmhouse the men, when employed there, cook their meals of great lumps of beef over a blaze of crackling sticks. The meat is hooked on to a long iron bar which is stuck upright in the ground, and the savoury smell of the roasting, crackling meat fills the air. ”

“ These vegetables should be cooked a little longer than the potatoes. So far as the meat component goes, almost any flesh is suitable. The leftovers from the broiled steaks or chops; chickens or fowls, ducks, grouse, shore birds or any other meat from the roast or spit; the greater the variety, the better the stew. If fresh meat is purchased, get the neck, shin, bottom of the round, or any of the inferior pieces in preference to the, so-called, choicer cuts. Although not so tender, they have a far richer flavor. It is needless to say that venison, rabbits, or squirrels are adapted to this dish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wash and pick the head very nicely; having taken out the brains and tongue, prepare a good quantity of forced meat, with veal and suet well seasoned; fill the hole of the head with this forced meat, skewer and tie it together upon the spit, and roast it for an hour and a half. Beat up the brains with a little sage and parsley shred fine, a little salt, and the yelks of two or three eggs; boil the tongue, peel, and cut it into large dice, fry that with the brains, also some of the forced meat made up into balls, and slices of bacon. ”

“ Put a little of each kind of meat used in a mortar, say from one ounce to a pound, with parsley, thyme, bay-leaf, salt and pepper; pound the whole well and then mix with one egg, half a gill of white wine, or a liquor-glass of brandy, to every pound of meat. Fill the hollow places with the mixture, to which you may add a little gravy or broth if it is not liquid enough. Place thin slices of salt pork on the top, cover with paste as described above, cook and serve as above also.
Meat-pies, as seen above, are made with every kind of meat ”

“ Stuff it with any force meat that you like. You remember this morning that we made force meat by chopping a teaspoonful of onion and frying it in a tablespoonful of butter, then putting in with the fried onion a cupful of stale bread soaked in cold water, seasoning with salt and pepper and sweet herbs. I said also that you could add chopped meat, cold meat or eggs, or to make any desired addition to the force meat in the way of seasoning. A little grated cheese in stuffing is very nice. You scarcely will realize what the seasoning is. ”

“ Either the skin stuffed with minced meat, or boned, & fill the vents and body; or not boned and trust to boil, fill the bodies with any of the farsings following made of any minced meat, and seasoned with pepper, cloves, mace, and salt; then mince some sweet herbs with bacon and fowl, veal, mutton, or lamb, and mix with it three or four eggs, mingle all together with grapes, gooseberries, barberries, or red currans, and sugar, or none, some pine-apple-seed, or pistaches; fill the fowl, and stew it in a stewing-pan with some strong broth, as much as will cover them, and a little white wine ”

“ A very thick steak of moose meat or beef may be cooked in this manner. Remember to have fire-dogs and a good back log; there will then be hot coals under the front log and flame against the back log to furnish heat for the meat in front. Turn the meat every few minutes and do not salt it until it is about done. Any sort of meat can be thus cooked; it is a favorite way of toasting bacon among the sportsmen, and I have seen chickens beautifully broiled with no cooking implements but the forked stick. ”

“ In plump young lamb and pork all cuts are tender. With veal, rib and loin are generally more tender than the rest of the carcass. The cheaper cuts of lamb, pork, and veal—that is, shoulder, breast, and shank meat—make good chops, roasts, pot roasts, and stews.
Learn the cuts of meat so you can name them when you see them. The best teacher is the reliable meat dealer. Arrange to do your marketing at the time of day when he can help you. ”

“ Beef Liver.—Cut it in slices half an inch thick, pour boiling water on it, broil it with thin slices of pork dipped in flour, cut it in mouthfuls, and heat it with butter, pepper, and salt for three or four minutes.
Egg Omelet.—Beat the yolks of six eggs, and add a cup of milk, half a tea-spoonful of salt, and a pinch of pepper. Pour into hot fat, and cook till just stiffened. Turn it on to a platter brown side uppermost. Some add minced cooked ham, or cold meat chopped and salted. Others put in chopped cauliflower or asparagus cooked and cold. ”