Pot roast

“ In the case of a pot roast, or roast in a kettle, where it is desirable to use both the fibre of the meat and the juice, or gravy, it should be put into a little cold water and raised to about 180 degrees F., where it should be kept for some hours. ”

“ I fear the pot roast will cool even on a warmed platter." After removing the meat from the pan add a large tablespoonful of flour, moistened with a small quantity of cold water, to the broth in the pan for gravy; cook until thickened, strain sliced onion and parsley from the broth, add seasoning of salt and pepper, serve on the platter with the meat; the onion added, gives the gravy a fine flavor and causes it to be a dark, rich brown in color. ”

“ When buying a pot roast, "Aunt Sarah" selected a thick, chunky piece of meat, weighing several pounds, and a small piece of beef suet which she cut into small bits, placed pan containing them on hot range, added a small, sliced onion, and when fat was quite hot she added the quickly rinsed piece of meat, and quickly seared it to retain the juice; added 1 cup of hot water, a sprig of parsley, seasoning of salt and pepper ”

“ Brown on both sides in butter, to keep juice in steak, salt and pepper, then turn over a can of tomatoes with sauce and bake 11⁄2 hours in self-basting pan.—Mrs. O. Kleppisch.
Pot Roast with Carrots.
Make a pot roast as usual. In a separate kettle put 2 bunches of carrots scraped and cut in small pieces, 1 tablespoon butter, 2 tablespoons sugar, pinch of salt; cover with water and simmer until water has boiled off, then add gravy from the pot roast a little at a time, using just enough to keep carrots from burning. Stir often. ”

“ When these are bag broiled with a bit of macaroni in each end to simulate the chop bone they can be arranged to stand on a bed of parsley stacked against a pretty bowl containing tomato sauce or stewed tomato, a spoonful of which is to be served with each portion. The bed on which the chops are to rest may be mashed potato or peas, if preferred to the parsley.
Pot Roast.—While this does not eliminate washing the pot, the juices and flavor of the beef are so conserved that instead of the usual dry pot-roast it is moist and tender and so well worth the trouble. ”

“ The loin of veal is the best roasting piece, the breast and rack are good roasting pieces, the breast makes a good pot pie. The leg is nice for frying, and when several slices have been cut off for cutlets the remainder is nice boiled with about half a pound of salt pork. Veal for roasting should be salted and peppered, and have a little butter rubbed on it, baste it frequently, and unless the meat is very fat put a small piece of butter in the dripping pan when the meat is put down to roast. ”

“ Examples: steak, English muffins, griddle cakes.
Pot Roasting is cooking in an iron kettle or earthen pot in a small amount of water, after meat has been quickly browned in a small amount of fat in the frying pan [Pg 16] or kettle. Cook slowly until very tender, with or without vegetables.
Roasting is cooking before an open fire. This method is seldom used in small households, although the baking of meats is commonly called roasting.
Sautéing is cooking in a small amount of fat in a shallow pan on top of range. Examples: sliced fish, meat, potatoes, eggs. ”

“ Melt in a pot about two ounces of butter, and when hot add the beef and roast on top of the range until it is brown on all sides. Then remove the beef, add one ounce of fresh butter to the gravy already in the pot, and when hot add two large spoonfuls of flour, and allow it to brown. Then add three pints of water, bring to a boil, and then put in the beef again. Add two calf's feet, one onion, one carrot, a large bouquet garni, four chopped tomatoes, salt, and a spoonful of whole black peppers. When boiling season well, cover, and put in oven. ”

“ In roasting meat, the heat must be strongest at first, and it should then be much reduced. To have a good juicy roast, therefore, the fire must be red and vigorous at the very commencement of the operation. In the most careful roasting, some of the juice is squeezed out of the meat: this evaporates on the surface of the meat, and gives it a dark brown colour, a rich lustre, and a strong aromatic taste. Besides these effects on the albumen and the expelled juice, roasting converts the cellular tissue of the meat into gelatine, and melts the fat out of the fat-cells. ”

“ The most economical cuts of beef for roasting are the shoulder, the face of the rump, and the chuck ribs; they are all of good flavor and fairly tender. When ordering a shoulder roast, have an inch slice cut off to broil. The chuck roast should be ordered boned and rolled, and the bones sent with it. Wipe beef with cheesecloth, place skin side down on a rack in a roasting pan suitable for the size of the roast; dust with salt and pepper, dredge with flour, and cook in a hot oven, basting every ten minutes. When half roasted, turn over, dredge with flour, and finish cooking. ”

“ Salt hardens the fibre of the meat; it, therefore, requires to be cooked for a longer time to make it tender.
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RULES FOR ROASTING. To roast successfully, make up a nice clear fire. When once made up, it should be replenished, if necessary, by putting on coal or coke at the back. The live coals should be drawn to the front to prevent smoke. Fasten the joint to the jack. Place the roaster close to the fire for the first ten minutes, so that the heat of the fire may at once harden the albumen, and form a case to keep in the flavour and juices. ”

“ In roasting or boiling, use but little salt at first, as it hardens meat to do otherwise. In roasting, baste frequently, to prevent the meat from hardening on the outside, and try to preserve the juices. If possible, roast the meat on a spit before a large, open fire, after using salt, pepper, butter or lard, and dredging with flour. Where an open fire-place cannot be obtained, however, the meat may be well roasted in a stove or range. Mutton, pork, shote and veal should be well done, but beef should be cooked rare. ”

“ Cut up a small onion, a celery root and part of a carrot into rather small pieces and add to these two or three sprigs of parsley and one bay leaf. Sprinkle these over the bottom of the dripping-pan and place your roast on this bed. The oven should be very hot when the roast is first put in, but when the roast is browned sufficiently to retain its juices, moderate the heat and roast more slowly until the meat is done. Do not season until the roast is browned, and then add salt and pepper. Enough juice and fat will drop from the roast to give the necessary broth for basting. ”

“ It is not well to salt meat at first, as salt extracts the juices. In roasting all meats, the art depends chiefly on flouring thoroughly, basting frequently, and turning so often as not to allow any part to burn.
To roast in a cooking stove, it is necessary to attend carefully to the fire, lest the meat should burn. Lay it into the pan with three or four gills of water in it. Turn the pan around often, that all the parts may roast equally. When it is about half done, flour it again, turn it over that the lower side may become brown. ”

“ Catherine de Medici came to France surrounded with a legion of cooks, rôtisseurs and pâtissiers, and these new-comers first improved the cookery already existing, and having found apt scholars in the French, were soon surpassed by their pupils.
The art of roasting is considered an especial art by our neighbours. It is very true, that there is no process in cookery so simple, and yet very few can accomplish it properly. A roast, whether of beef, mutton, venison, lamb, or fowl, should neither be under nor over done. ”

“ Why is our roast beef usually so insipid and unappetizing?
Sometimes the inferior quality of the meat is to blame, but more frequently our disappointment is due to the cook's indolence or the substitution of baking for roasting.
Real roasting is like broiling in so far as it requires exposure of the meat to an open fire. It differs from broiling in that it also calls for frequent basting, that is, taking up with a spoon the fat which flows from the meat and pouring it over the surface, thus aiding the initial searing in keeping in the juices, on which the Flavor depends. ”

“ The beef is cooked in a cool oven—so cool that a peeled, raw potato will cook tender without browning. Allow about an hour and a quarter for a [Pg 274] four-pound rib-roast. In this way the heat penetrates to the center without hardening the outside. When properly done the outside is very little more cooked than the inside, and the roast throughout is tender, rare, and juicy, with no hard-burned edges. This way of baking makes inferior beef more tender and juicy than the English way. It has the disadvantage of not leaving any gravy in the pan. ”

“ The real and most natural gravy for roasts is made from the swilling of the baking- or dripping-pan, even if water be used as the diluent, since the contents of these utensils represent a portion of the essential principles of the roast fallen from it in the process of cooking. But to obtain this result neither the utensils nor the gravy ought to have burned; the latter should merely have solidified, and for this reason a roast cooked in a very fierce oven ought to be laid on a pan only just large enough to hold it, so that the fat may not burn. ”

“ Cold boiled potatoes are very nice cut in slices, and fried on a griddle in drippings. The common way of roasting potatoes is improved by peeling them when raw, and then roasting them in a Dutch oven or cooking stove. It gives the outside a fine crisp, of which many are fond.
In boiling all vegetables, first put salt in the water, say a great spoonful to a gallon. It is important to select all of a similar size that all may cook alike. Never let your pot stop boiling till they are done, as it makes them water soaked. ”

“ Cook makes the most abominable pastry and cannot roast at all; our poor little joints of meat are shrivelled up and hard, so she has really no need to give herself such airs. With regard to the roasting I really am most perplexed, and hope you will be able to advise me. I have by me a standard cookery book, which assures me most positively that a joint should be put in a hot oven to make a casing to keep in the juices, and then it is to be cooked more slowly. ”

“ In roasting, the meat should at first be placed near the coals, so as to quickly harden the surface; then it should be removed back a little distance, to be cooked through, without burning. The oftener it is basted, the better it is. If the roast of meat is very large, it should be surrounded with a buttered paper. ”

“ These being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at a leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time to serve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a result, if the largest are cooked, the smallest are presented in cinders, and the intermediate sizes are withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined by a few moments of overdoing. That which at the right moment was plump with mealy richness, a quarter of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery,—and it is in this state that roast potatoes are most frequently served. ”

“ Large joints should be put down soon after the fire is made up and begins to burn. The gradual access of the heat to meat prevents its burning. If a joint be burned in the early process, it is an evil scarcely remediable in the subsequent stages of the operation of roasting. For this reason it is that in the great kitchens in France there is always some one whose special duty it is to attend to the roast alone. In the fourth volume of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” it is said that a dinner may be compared to the rooms of a house, and the roast is the salon or principal apartment. ”

“ We made a beef stew one day, here, I think. Roasting is cooking meat before the direct blaze of the open fire. Baking is cooking it in the oven. Nearly all the so-called roast beef that we get is baked beef. It is not quite so delicate as real roast beef. You can accomplish the roasting of beef with any range or kitchen stove that has a large grate, that is, a grate where you can have a clear surface of coals against the grate, by using what is called a Dutch oven. ”

“ If there is danger of flour burning in pan, add a small quantity of water; this, however, is not desirable, and seldom need be done if size of pan is adapted to size of roast. Beef to be well roasted should be started in hot oven and heat decreased, so that when carved the slices will be red throughout, with a crisp layer of golden brown fat on the top. Beef roasted when temperature is so high that surface is hardened before heat can penetrate to the centre is most unsatisfactory. ”

“ Roast.—Take a piece of the best end of a neck, trim off all superfluous fat, saw off the chine, wrap up the joint in a piece of oiled paper. Roast it at a brisk fire, basting frequently. When it has roasted 1⁄2 hour remove the paper, sprinkle the joint freely with salt, and put it nearer the fire, and as soon as it has taken a good colour it is ready. Time of roasting must necessarily vary according to the nature of the fire, the size of the joint, and the taste of those for whom it is cooked for eating meat overdone or underdone. No hard and fast rule can be given for the time of roasting. ”

“ The dripping of roast beef, after all the fat has been removed, and the basting of the meat is over, should be strained into a pan, and kept in a cold place, with a cover; and next day, when it is congealed into a cake, scrape off whatever impurities may still adhere to the bottom, transfer it to a covered jar, and set it in the refrigerator, or where it will be cold. The dripping of roast beef is excellent for frying, for plain pie-crust, or for many other purposes. The dripping of mutton (being tallow) [142] is only fit for soap-fat, and will spoil any dish whatever. ”