The Chemistry of Cookery

tin-plate vessel; but, instead of water, there is an air space surrounding the earthenware pot. A top screws over this, and the whole stands in an ordinary saucepan of water. The heat is thus very slowly and steadily communicated through an air-bath, and it makes excellent beef-tea. At temperatures _below the boiling point_ evaporation proceeds superficially, and the rate of evaporation at a given temperature is proportionate to the surface exposed, irrespective of the total quantity of water; therefore, the shallower the inner vessel of the _bain-marie_, and the greater its upper outspread, the lower will be the temperature of its liquid contents when its sides and bottom are heated by boiling water. The water in a basin-shaped inner vessel will have a lower temperature than that in a vessel of similar depth, with upright sides, and exposing an equal water surface. A good water-bath for stewing may be extemporised by using a common pudding-basin (I mean one with projecting rim, as used for tying down the pudding-cloth), and selecting a saucepan just big enough for this to drop into, and rest upon its rim. Put the meat, &c., to be stewed into the basin, pour hot water over them, and hot water into the saucepan, so that the basin shall be in a water-bath; then let this outer water simmer—very gently, so as not to jump the basin with its steam. Stew thus for about double the time usually prescribed in English cookery-books, and compare the result with similar materials stewed in boiling or ‘simmering’ water. I have already (page 91) referred to the frying that, in most cases, should precede stewing. It not only supplies the caramel browning there described, but moderates the extraction of the juices which, as I have said above, is desirable on the part of the meat itself when gravy is not the primary object. Some further explanation is here necessary, as it is quite possible to obtain what commonly passes for tenderness by a very flagrant violation of the principles above expounded. This is done on a large scale and in extreme degree