White meat

“ White meat, such as chicken, quail or nice veal, is decidedly the best for the purpose. Stew the meat until tender, in considerable liquid as when you put into the paste much of that will be absorbed. In making the paste take 1 quart of flour and 2 tablespoonfuls of baking powder, rubbed well into the flour, 1⁄4 pound butter or sweet lard, and a little salt; mix [Pg 61] with milk or water into a soft dough; roll 1⁄2 an inch thick; cut to size, and lay in a steamer for 15 minutes to make light, then put in and around the stew; cooking slowly for ten minutes. ”

“ The flesh of pork, when in good condition, is a delicate pinky white, with a close fine grain; the fat, which should not be too abundant, of a white color, very faintly tinged with pink; the skin should be thin and elastic to the touch, and the flesh generally cool, clean, and smooth looking; if, on the contrary, the flesh is flabby and clammy when touched, it is not fresh.
Pork, like all white meat, is quick to taint, and never should be kept long before cooking. ”

“ White Sauce.—One pound of knuckle of veal, or any veal trimmings, or cold white meat, from which all brown skin has been removed; if meat has been cooked, more will be required. It is best to have a little butcher's meat fresh, even if you have plenty of cold meat in the larder; any chicken bones greatly improve the stock. This should simmer for five hours, together with a little salt, a dozen white peppercorns, one or two small onions stuck with cloves, according to taste, a slice or two of lean ham, and a little shred of celery and a carrot (if in season) in a quart of water. ”

“ The white meats—milk, butter, and cheese—though very dear, are reputed as good for inferior people, but the more wealthy feed upon the flesh of all sorts of cattle and all kinds of fish. The nobility (“whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers “) exceed in number of dishes and change of meat. Every day at dinner there is beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, conie, capon, pig, or as many of these as the season yielded, besides deer and wildfowl, and fish, and sundry delicacies “wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting.” ”

“ HOW TO SELECT MEAT
When buying beef, see that it is bright red in color, streaked with fat—and firm. The streaks of fat add to the food value and make a more flavory steak or roast. Veal is pink in color, but less firm. Mutton flesh is firm and dull red in color, the fat hard and white or slightly yellow. Pork is dark pink in color and the fat is less firm than beef or mutton. ”

“ Table Poultry.—National taste governs the market for table poultry to a large extent. In England white meat, skin and legs are preferred, and at one time black legs or yellow skin were heavily discounted. More knowledge has largely removed that prejudice, but white has a market value still. In France exceedingly white and smooth skin is preferred, but buyers are indifferent to black legs. In America yellow skin and legs are actually preferred, such fowls being thought more juicy ”

“ Boned and rolled or stuffed meats require longer cooking than the same joints would if neither rolled nor stuffed. The meat of young animals and that of old ones requires different treatment. As a rule young flesh, containing less fibrine, requires longer cooking. White meat, such as pork, veal and lamb, always should be well cooked and never must be served rare. The exact time and process of roasting must be left to the good management of the cook, who must be guided by circumstances and conditions. The cook's business is to serve the joint as full of nourishing qualities as possible. ”

“ When beef is good, it will have a fine smooth open grain, and it will feel tender when squeezed or pinched in your fingers. The lean should be of a bright carnation red, and the fat white rather than yellow—the suet should be perfectly white. If the lean looks dark or purplish, and the fat very yellow, do not buy the meat. ”

“ Then put the pot on the fire; add some salt and pepper to it, and gently simmer the contents for half an hour.
Next put in the vegetables sliced, and the herbs tied together.
Simmer for 41⁄2 hours longer, skimming occasionally.
Strain into a clean pan, and set aside to get cold.
White Stock.
This may be made by the directions in the preceding recipe, using white meat instead of beef; knuckle of veal is considered the stock meat for white soup. Knuckle of veal and a rabbit make excellent stock.
Very good economical white stock may be made by using bones only in making the stock, and no meat ”

“ PORK should have fine, white fat, and the meat should be white and smooth. Only country-fed pork should ever be eaten, the pig even then being liable to diseases unknown to other animals, and the meat, even when carefully fed, being at all times less digestible than any sort. ”

“ If young and freshly killed, the lean of ox-beef will be smoothly grained, and of a fine, healthy, carnation-red, the fat rather white than yellow, and the suet white and firm. Heifer-beef is more 185closely grained, and rather less bright of colour, the bones are considerably smaller, and the fat of a purer white.
Of bull-beef we only speak to warn our readers that it is of all meat the coarsest and the most rank in flavour. It may be known by its dark hue, its close tough fibre, and the scanty proportion, bad appearance, and strong odour of its fat. ”

“ When the nut is ripe the husk falls off and the milk solidifies into hard, white meat. When this is cut up into small pieces and covered with a little warm water, a thick, rich cream will rise, which cannot be distinguished from the finest cow's cream. ”

“ If let alone, it soon boils down and sticks to the meat, which, instead of looking delicately white and nice, will have that coarse appearance we have too often to complain of, and the butcher and poulterer will be blamed for the carelessness of the cook, in not skimming her pot with due diligence.
Many put in milk, to make what they boil look white, but this does more harm than good; others wrap it up in a cloth; but these are needless precautions; if the scum be attentively removed, meat will have a much more delicate colour and finer flavour than it has when muffled up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Color Meat Should be.—Meat should be red with the fat a clear white. The fat besides being white should be firm, and suety, and never moist. Good meat has very little smell. Bad meat shrinks considerably in boiling. Meat which is fresh and good does not loose an ounce of weight, but swells rather, when it is being boiled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beef makes the best brown stock, but it lacks gelatinous substance; therefore stock for good consommé, or clear soup, should be made of beef and veal, and a fowl, or part of a fowl added to give it an additional flavour.
2. White stock is usually made from veal, bones and remains of poultry and calves' feet. The liquor in which calves' head or fowls has been boiled makes excellent white stock.
3. Stock meat should be as lean and as fresh as possible. Never wash meat unless obliged, as it deprives its surface of all the juices. ”

“ White stock is made with a knuckle of veal, or the bones of rabbit or fowl, or any uncooked meat, with carrots, turnips, a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, two or three blades of parsley tied in a bunch; let it simmer beside the fire for six hours, then pass it through a sieve; never let the stock remain more than one day in warm weather in the same basin. Pour it into a sauce-pan, and bring it to the boil each day ”

“ This is, in fact, to stew in highly seasoned fat. Poultry must be trussed as for boiling. Either lard, or stuff it, with good forcemeat, and provide a thick-bottomed stew-pan, large enough to hold it. Line this with slices of bacon, or fat beef, sliced onion, carrot, and turnip. Strew in a few chopped herbs, salt, mace, black and Jamaica pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a clove of garlic. (The seasoning to suit the meat.) Lay the meat in, and cover it, first with the same quantity of herbs and spices as above, then with thin slices of bacon, and, over all, white paper ”

“ and imagine an angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him a mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county of beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place; ”

“ There is, notwithstanding the opinion foolishly held by many doctors, no difference in the nutritive qualities of white or dark meat, as either variety is nourished by identically the same blood supply, and contains the same sort of protoplasm. ”

“ Brisket and flank, used for pickling in salt and smoked bacon.
The cheek is used for pickling in salt, also the shank or shin. The feet are usually used for souse and jelly.
For family use the leg is the most economical, that is when fresh, and the loin the richest. The best pork is from carcasses weighing from fifty to about one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Pork is a white and close meat, and it is almost impossible to over-roast or cook it too much; when underdone it is exceedingly unwholesome. ”

“ Melt the fat in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir until well blended. Add the salt, pepper, and paprika. Heat the stock or cream and add to the mixture in the saucepan. Stir constantly until the sauce is completely thickened. Then add the chopped chicken, mushrooms, and parsley. When cold, shape into oblong croquettes, roll in the egg, slightly beaten, and then in fine crumbs. Fry in deep fat until brown. Serve with a garnish or some vegetable, such as peas, diced carrots, or small pieces of cauliflower, as well as with left-over chicken gravy or well-seasoned white sauce. ”

“ A glass of wine, with a tablespoonful of white sugar dissolved in it, may be used for the gravy, instead of the jelly and water. Venison may be boiled, and served with boiled vegetables, pickled beets, etc., and sauce.
[Pg 107]
MEATS.
In the selection of meat it is most essential that we understand how to choose it ”

“ He was upwards of eight feet high, could tire down a horse at the gallop on foot, could break its leg by a blow of his hand, could overthrow thirty wrestlers without drawing breath, and maintained this prodigious force by eating forty pounds of meat, and drinking an amphora and a half, or twelve quarts, of wine. ”

“ Now you hear the hiss and whiz of the polishing wheel; now the rattle of looms, and the croak of stocking-weavers. And at times comes a man pushing before him a great barrowful of bread—large, flat, brown loaves—on his way to supply the off hamlets which have no bakery. And now and then old women creep by, bending under a burden of firewood. Two whom I overtook told me they walked three miles twice a week to fetch a bundle of sticks from the forest; and when I asked if they ate meat or cheese, answered with a "Gott bewahr! never. Nothing but bread and potatoes." ”

“ Smoked beef is good if stewed a few minutes with a lump of butter mixed with flour and enough milk to cover the whole, which may be seasoned with pepper. Fried fish that has become cold can be revived in the same way; the flour may be omitted and some salt must be added.
An onion may be boiled in bread sauce, and removed before serving, or pepper may be added; celery chopped and cooked in a stew or sauce adds a peculiarly pleasant flavor. Tough meat of all kinds should be stewed, and except salt pork, meat should be rarely fried. ”

“ Pork—fresh and salted, bacon and ham—is the natural and invariable food of the settler. Beef and mutton are too valuable as marketable steers, dairy cattle, and wool-growers, and are not so conveniently prepared into keeping forms; hence the pigs he breeds on his clearings are looked upon by the bush-farmer as the regular source whence to draw his household provision in the meat way. ”

“ 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 ”