The Chemistry of Cookery

‘in cut’ for two or three hours. Of this I speak theoretically, not having had an opportunity of tasting a joint that has been cooked in a brick oven of the construction above described; but I have observed the advantage of maintaining a steady heat throughout the process of roasting (after the first higher heating above described), in the iron oven of a kitchener, or American stove, or gas oven. Another and somewhat original method of roasting is that which is carried out in ‘Captain Warren’s Cooking Pot,’ concerning the practical result of which I hear conflicting opinions. It is a large pot containing water, inside which is suspended—like the glue chamber of a glue-pot—an inner vessel. The meat to be cooked is placed without water in this inner closed vessel, which dips into the water of the outer vessel, the steam from which is led away by a side opening or pipe. This outer water being kept boiling, the meat is surrounded only by its own vapour, in the midst of which it is cooked at a low temperature. The result is similar to boiled meat, with the advantage of retaining those juices that pass away into the water in ordinary boiling. This advantage is unquestionable, and so far the apparatus may be safely recommended. But some of the claims made in the prospectuses that are freely distributed are questionable. The method of roasting with Warren’s pot is to cook the meat as above described in its own vapour, then dredge with flour, and hang before the fire twenty minutes. The result is a tender imitation of roast meat, but more like boiled than roasted meat in flavour. This is much approved by many, but I am told that meat thus cooked and eaten daily palls upon the appetite. I know one, a youth (not one of our fastidious fops of the period), who, fed upon this at school during a few years, has thereby acquired a fixed aversion to boiled meat of all kinds. Regarding the subject theoretically, it appears to me that the method recommended by Captain