54 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Boiling—Broiling—Roasting—Frying. 
When meats are boiled in water, a considera¬ 
ble portion of the nutriment is dissolved out, 
and owing to the fact that water can not he 
heated above 212° except under pressure, it is 
often difficult to heat the meat enough by boil¬ 
ing to disorganize its fibers and make it tender. 
If it be necessary to soak out salt, put meats to 
be boiled into cold water, and let them be grad¬ 
ually heated. But when it is desired to retain 
the juices, the water should be made boiling hot 
before the meat is put in, so as to close the 
pores, or coagulate the albumen upon the sur¬ 
face, at once. To obtain the best broth , let the 
meat be put into cold or lukewarm water, and 
be kept for a long time below the boiling point. 
A better plan still, is to cut the meat very fine, 
put it into a bottle, cork it tight, and then place 
the bottle in a kettle of water, and boil it thus 
for a considerable time. 
When meats are broiled on a gridiron over hot 
coals, the sudden high heat applied sears the 
outside, which shuts in the juices, and the rapid 
application of heat soon cooks the meat through, 
if in moderately thin pieces. It is then tender, 
juicy, and palatable. Those who never broil 
their fresh meat, or fish, or poultry, do not know 
the excellences of a properly cooked dish of 
animal food. Of all methods of cooking fresh 
meats, whether fish, flesh, or fowl, broiling is the 
best—provided always that the cook is active 
and intelligent enough to handle the gridiron 
and meat dexterously, so as not to make char¬ 
coal of an atom, and yet quickly cook every 
part of the meat sufficiently to suit the taste of 
the consumer. 
Roasting meat, in an oven, is next to broiling, 
and generally preferable in the hands of a care¬ 
less, or slow, or inexperienced cook. But a piece 
of meat to be roasted well, should be put into an 
oven already hot, so as to sear the surface in or¬ 
der to retain the juices. The heat should after¬ 
wards kept as high as possible without actu¬ 
al chairing or burning the meat. The higher 
the beat, and the more rapid the cooking, the 
tenderer will be the meat. A long slow roast¬ 
ing, is next door to “ tanning.” 
Frying in a pan or spider is the worst mode of 
cooking meats, except for tasteless fish, or 
meats which are so much like chips as to re¬ 
quire soaking in fat to render them at all pala¬ 
table. Swine-eating Gentiles do well to fry their 
pork, to “ try out ” a considerable proportion of 
the lard—though we have never been able to 
appreciate the good taste or digestibility of the 
flit soaked “ scraps ” left after frying a piece of 
pork in the usual process. 
Cooking Potatoes. 
Baking is by far the best method of cooking 
potatoes. Some think they dry out so much, 
that boiling is more economical. This is 
a mistake. At least four ounces out of every five 
of the weight of potatoes are simply water, and 
there is no loss of nutriment in drying out these 
four ounces of water. On the contrary, the dry, 
mealy portion left after baking, is more conge¬ 
nial to the stomach and more easily digested 
than when the moisture is kept in by boiling. 
Frying potatoes in lard is the worst of all 
methods. Unless masticated very thoroughly 
before swallowing—a thing few persons do, no 
matter how good their teeth—it is next to im¬ 
possible for the gastric juice in the stomach to 
attack afid dissolve a lump of potato coated with 
fried lard, or other grease. If any one doubts 
this, let him eat three baked potatoes one morn¬ 
ing ; and the next morning eat the same amount 
of potatoes fried. In the latter case an uneasy 
dull feeling for two or three hours after eating, 
will afford abundant evidence as to which is the 
better mode. 
If potatoes are cooked by boiling, they should 
always be thoroughly mashed before eating. If 
not done in the kettle, let it be done upon the 
plate. When mashed in the kettle, it is not eco¬ 
nomical, or best, to mix in a large quantity of but¬ 
ter. The use of butter, spices, etc., is to stimu¬ 
late the glands of the mouth and cause them to 
throw out abundant saliva to moisten the food 
and better prepare it for the gastric juice of the 
stomach. This saliva is what really gives food 
its “ good taste,” and that food is most relished 
which “ makes the mouth water ” most freely. 
Butter, salt, or other condiments upon the out¬ 
side of food, come most readily in contact with 
the glands of the mouth, and a little butter will 
taste better on the outside of a mouthful of food, 
than double the quantity mixed intimately 
through it. Half a pound of butter mixed into 
a loaf of bread will not taste as well as two 
ounces spread upon the slices. This rule holds 
good in many preparations of food. We sus¬ 
pect that “ one cup of butter ” only, in a cake, 
and a quarter of a cup spread on the outside in 
eating, will taste better than “ two cups ” put 
into the mixing pan. We are quite aware that 
the ladies will tell us that they need the butter 
in the cake to make it “ short ”—but our rule 
holds good in a degree, nevertheless. We like 
good butter on the outside of food where we can 
see and taste it. If the butter is poor, put it on 
the inside and bake out its bad taste so far as can 
be done.—But we have wandered from cooking 
potatoes, and must say more about boiling them 
“ mealy ” at another time. The above' hints are 
small things to write about, some will say, but 
it is the little things that have most to do with 
good cooking. The larger matters every body 
will, of course, look after. 
- - --— - -- 
“Buckwheats.” 
Flap-Jacks, or “ slap-jacks,” as they are fa¬ 
miliarly called in New-England, are in the as¬ 
cendant at this season, and they are worthy of 
the prominent place they occupy on the winter 
table. If rightly made, they afford a large amount 
of good eating without overloading the stomach 
with too much solid material. Why they should 
be wholly discarded through the Summer sea¬ 
son, we never could see, unless it be to save fuel— 
and yet it takes less fire to cook a supply of 
buckwheat cakes for a summer breakfast, than 
is required for boiling a kettle of potatoes. 
The opinion formerly prevailed that buck¬ 
wheat flour produced eruptions of the skin. 
We suspect the trouble resulted more from indi¬ 
gestion, arising from overloading the stomach 
with an immense quantity of cakes steeped in 
gravy and poor molasses. However that may 
have been, since the modern process of hulling 
buckwheat before grinding, has come into gen¬ 
eral use, we hear less of the complaints of the 
unhealthfulness of buckwheat cakes. It may be 
stated here also, that probably half of the ma¬ 
terial sold as buckwheat is really wheat flour. 
The comparative scarcity and high price of 
buckwheat has made it profitable to adulterate 
it largely with the cheaper brands of wheat 
flour. “ Middlings ” are much used for the same 
purpose, as most people mistake the dark color 
given by these, for that of buckwheat itself. 
[February, 
But we started to give a scientific hint to the 
cook. A really good light flap-jack is compara¬ 
tively a rare article. After raising with yeast, 
the batter usually contains considerable acid, 
and it is customary to correct this acidity by the 
addition of an alkali—saleratus or soda. (Soda 
is better than saleratus for all kinds of cooking 
purposes, as less of it is required to produce the 
same results.) The alkali of the soda neutralizes 
the acid in the batter, and the carbonic acid gas 
set at liberty from the soda, assists in giving light¬ 
ness to the cakes. But Bridget fails in nine 
times out of ten to add just soda enough; the 
cakes are either left a little sour, or they are 
overdosed, and taste of the alkali. The soda is 
also added in lumps, and seldom gets thoroughly 
diffused. It should be dissolved in a trifle of 
water, before putting it into the batter, and then 
be stirred in briskly and thoroughly. 
If too little be added, the cakes are still sour, 
and of course the only remedy is to add more. 
But what if too much be added? We judge 
from observation, that few persons know that 
the over-dose of soda can be admirably correct¬ 
ed by stirring in a little cream of tartar. This 
will not only neutralize the excess of alkali, but 
will also yield carbonic acid gas to lighten the 
cakes. 
The theorist will here condemn us for recom¬ 
mending these “ drugs ” for human food. Well, 
if you can make fresh batter from new yeast, 
every morning, and have the batter just right 
without any addition, by all means leave out the 
soda, and its corrective, cream of tartar. But 
whenever the cakes come to the table a little, or 
a good deal sour, we shall call out to Bridget to 
put in some soda, and if she get in too much, 
we shall call for the cream of tartar. And still 
further, if by any reason the batter has not risen 
enough to give us light cakes, we shall order in 
a little of both soda and cream of tartar, which 
will make up for the lack of fermentation. And 
yet again; if Bridget “ forgot to set the batter 
last night,” and we want “ buckwheats ” for 
breakfast, we shall tell her to mix up some buck¬ 
wheat and put in “ one teaspoonful of soda and 
two of cream of tartar ” and thus give us some 
light unfermented cakes, which this process 
will produce. All this notwithstanding the the¬ 
ories of those who are down on saleratus and 
cream of tartar. We are but little more afraid 
of a slight admixture of Rochelle salt (which is 
produced by the union of soda and cream of tar¬ 
tar) than we are of an excess of common salt. 
This “ noxious drug ” does not go half so much 
against our stomach, as sour, or heavy, or soda 
browned cakes. 
One hint more now. We sat at a breakfast 
table recently where buckwheat cakes were the 
only resort from poor bread and butter, sausages, 
and fat fried potatoes; but the cakes too were 
cooked swimming in grease, and of course were 
unfit for eating, except in small quantity. When 
we chance to take breakfast with you, good 
friend, please have the flap-jacks cooked on a 
griddle greased barely enough to prevent stick¬ 
ing. If the hints above given are followed,'in¬ 
cluding this last one, and we have just a little 
good butter for the outside (see hints on cooking 
potatoes) we will only ask one favor more, and 
that is, that no count be kept of the number ot 
times our plate is passed up for “ one cake more.” 
P. 8.—A friend at our elbow hints that a soap¬ 
stone griddle is the best thing to cook flap- 
jacks on, especially for dyspeptics, as they will 
not stick to this if no grease be used. Also that 
apiece of raw salt pork is the best “greasei ” as 
it leaves just fat enough on an iron griddha 
