The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery

slices of pork or bacon, and roast about twenty-five minutes; serve with bread sauce. 111. =Bread Sauce.=--Peel and slice an onion weighing full an ounce, simmer it half an hour in one pint of milk, strain it, and to the milk add two ounces of stale bread, broken in small pieces, one ounce of butter, one saltspoonful of salt, and quarter of a saltspoonful of nutmeg and pepper mixed; strain, passing through a sieve with a spoon, and serve hot. CHAPTER VII. BOILED DISHES. Boiling is the most economical way of cooking, if properly done; there are several important points to be considered in this connection. We have already said that the best method of cooking meat is that which preserves all its nourishing juices; if in addition to this we can prepare it in such a way as to present a large available surface to the action of the digestive juices, we would seem to have reached culinary perfection. Judicious boiling accomplishes this: and we cannot do better than to follow Liebig's plan to first plunge the meat into boiling water, and boil it five minutes to coagulate the albumen to a sufficient depth to form a crust upon the surface, and thus confine the juices, and then add enough cold water to reduce the temperature to 158 deg. Fahr., if the meat is to be rare, or to 165 deg. Fahr., if it is to be well done; and to maintain this gentle heat until the meat is tender. There is comparatively little waste in boiling, from the fact that fat melts less quickly than in broiling or roasting, and the covering of the pot retards evaporation, while the water absorbed by the meat adds to its bulk to a certain extent without detracting from its quality. A strainer or plate should be placed in the bottom of the pot to prevent burning; the pot should be skimmed clear as soon as it boils, and the subsequent simmering should be gentle and steady; there should always be sufficient water to cover the meat in order to keep it