1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

THE NEW GUIDE FOR HOTELS, ETC.

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supply rough coarse joints for roasting, and the cook has to prepare them as best he can. For instance at a Cafe not a thousand miles from the nearest large town to Sandringham, I know a Cafe where the Chef in charge, has to supply hot roast beef daily from a piece of the **hump" of newly killed meat. Very rarely a tough leg of mutton figures on the list. Of course this requires doctoring. He has to prepare the steamer, and when it is quite hot, steam the joint for an hour, or more, according to weight. Have a bright roasting fire ready. Literally soak the lean meat in melted dripping, put it on the "spit** or **jack** before a very clear fire, and roast, basting more frequently than usual. Newly killed meat, or tough joints, steeped in vinegar for a few hours, are improved. The vinegar softens the fibrine. Carbonate of soda will soften a tough steak, but it is not penetrating enough for a large joint; besides the cost of covering a steak with carbonate of soda at 4d. per lb., and a large joint is very different. Common vinegar is the less expense of the two, and the liquor can be used after for other marinades, &c., and is more searching than the car- bonate, where there is bulk. In cooking birds by this method remember, game and poultry should if possible not be on the spit together, as the dripping will flavour the poultry, unless you wish to serve a pheasant and a farm-yard hen as a brace, or 1 partridge and 2 pigeons as a leash. Then hang the real game over the mock and baste. If the 2 must be on the spit at one time, and it is required to keep the flavours distinct, hang the poultry over the game, baste the game with the contents of the dripping pan, but have an earthenware dish, with very hot melted dripping in one corner of the "jack*' or by the "spit," and baste the turkey pullet, or whatever bird you may be dressing with it, using a separate ladle, or long spoon,