Appropriate cookery renders excellent food material much more digestible. When scientifically done, cooking modifications every of the food elements, with the exception of fats, in a lot the exact same manner as do the digestive juices, and at the exact same time it breaks up the food by dissolving the soluble portions, so that its elements are much more readily acted upon by the digestive fluids. Cookery, nonetheless, often fails to attain the desired end; and the greatest material is rendered useless and unwholesome by a improper preparation.
It really is rare to find a table, some portion of the food upon which isn’t rendered unwholesome either by improper preparatory treatment, or by the addition of some deleterious substance. This is doubtless because of the fact that the preparation of food being such a commonplace matter, its important relations to health, mind, and body have been overlooked, and it has been regarded as a menial service which may be undertaken with small or no preparation, and without having attention to matters apart from those which relate to the pleasure of the eye along with the palate. With taste only as a criterion, it really is so easy to disguise the outcomes of careless and improper cookery of food by the use of flavors and condiments, too as to palm off upon the digestive organs all sorts of inferior material, that poor cookery has come to be the rule rather than the exception.
Methods of cooking. Cookery is the art of preparing food for the table by dressing, or by the application of heat in some manner. A proper source of heat having been secured, the next step would be to apply it to the food in some manner. The principal methods generally employed are roasting, broiling, baking, boiling, stewing, simmering, steaming, and frying.
Roasting is cooking food in its own juices just before an open fire. Broiling, or grilling, is cooking by radiant heat. This approach is only adapted to thin pieces of food with a considerable quantity of surface. Bigger and much more compact foods really should be roasted or baked. Roasting and broiling are allied in principle. In both, the work is chiefly accomplished by the radiation of heat directly upon the surface of the food, even though some heat is communicated by the hot air surrounding the food. The intense heat applied to the food soon sears its outer surfaces, and therefore prevents the escape of its juices. If care be taken often to turn the food so that its whole surface will probably be thus acted upon, the interior of the mass is cooked by its own juices.
Baking is the cooking of food by dry heat in a closed oven. Only foods containing a considerable degree of moisture are adapted for cooking by this strategy. The hot, dry air which fills the oven is constantly thirsting for moisture, and will take from each moist substance to which it has access a quantity of water proportionate to its degree of heat. Foods containing but a modest amount of moisture, unless protected in some manner from the action of the heated air, or in some way supplied with moisture during the cooking process, come from the oven dry, hard, and unpalatable.
Boiling is the cooking of food in a boiling liquid. Water is the usual medium employed for this purpose. When water is heated, as its temperature is increased, minute bubbles of air which have been dissolved by it are given off. As the temperature rises, bubbles of steam will begin to form at the bottom of the vessel. At first these is going to be condensed as they rise into the cooler water above, causing a simmering sound; but as the heat increases, the bubbles will rise higher and higher just before collapsing, and in a short time will pass entirely by means of the water, escaping from its surface, causing much more or much less agitation, according to the rapidity with which they’re formed. Water boils when the bubbles thus rise to the surface, and steam is thrown off. The mechanical action of the water is increased by rapid bubbling, but not the heat; and to boil anything violently doesn’t expedite the cooking procedure, save that by the mechanical action of the water the food is broken into smaller pieces, which are for this reason far more readily softened. But violent boiling occasions an enormous waste of fuel, and by driving away in the steam the volatile and savory elements of the food, renders it significantly less palatable, if not altogether tasteless. The solvent properties of water are so increased by heat that it permeates the food, rendering its tough and tough constituents soft and easy of digestion.
The liquids mostly employed in the cooking of foods are water and milk. Water is best suited for the cooking of most foods, but for such farinaceous foods as rice, macaroni, and farina, milk, or at least component milk, is preferable, as it adds to their nutritive worth. In using milk for cooking purposes, it really should be remembered that becoming much more dense than water, when heated, less steam escapes, and consequently it boils sooner than does water. Then, too, milk becoming more dense, when it can be utilized alone for cooking, a little bigger quantity of fluid will be required than when water is employed.
Steaming, as its name implies, is the cooking of food by the use of steam. You will find several techniques of steaming, essentially the most frequent of which is by placing the food in a perforated dish over a vessel of boiling water. For foods not needing the solvent powers of water, or which already contain a huge amount of moisture, this method is preferable to boiling. Another form of cooking, which is normally termed steaming, is that of placing the food, with or without having water, as required, in a closed vessel which is placed inside an additional vessel containing boiling water. Such an apparatus is termed a double boiler. Food cooked in its own juices in a covered dish in a hot oven, is occasionally spoken of as being steamed or smothered.
Stewing is the prolonged cooking of food in a tiny quantity of liquid, the temperature of which is just below the boiling point. Stewing really should not be confounded with simmering, which is slow, steady boiling. The correct temperature for stewing is most simply secured by the use of the double boiler. The water within the outer vessel boils, even though that in the inner vessel doesn’t, becoming kept somewhat below the temperature of the water from which its heat is obtained, by the constant evaporation at a temperature a little below the boiling point.
Frying, which is the cooking of food in hot fat, can be a approach not to be suggested In contrast to all of the other food elements, fat is rendered less digestible by cooking. Doubtless it is for this reason that nature has provided those foods which call for essentially the most prolonged cooking to fit them for use with only a modest proportion of fat, and it would seem to indicate that any food to be subjected to a high degree of heat really should not be mixed and compounded largely of fats.
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Cooking Guide Of Scientific Cooking
Deciding If Milk Is In Good Quality
If milk of good quality is bought, and, as has been suggested, this should be done whenever it is possible, the next thing to do is to care for it in such a way that it may be fed to the family in the same condition as it was when delivered. It is, of course, of prime importance that the dairyman deliver cleanfresh milk, but this is not sufficient; the milk must remain in this condition until it is used, and this can occur only when the housewife knows how to care for it properly after it enters the home. It is possible to make safe milk unsafe and unsafe milk positively dangerous unless the housewife understands how to care for milk and puts into practice what she knows concerning this matter. Indeed, some of the blame laid to the careless handling of milk by dairymen really belongs to housewives, for very often they do not take care of milk in the right way after delivery. As too much attention cannot be given to this matter, explicit directions are here outlined, with the idea of assisting the housewife in this matter as much as possible.
Immediately upon delivery, the bottle containing the milk should be placed in the coolest place available, never being allowed to stand on the porch in the sun or where such animals as cats or dogs may come in contact with it. When the milk is to be used, the paper cap should be carefully wiped before it is removed from the bottle, so that any dirt that may be on top will not fall into the milk. If not all the milk is used and the bottle must be returned to the cool place where it is kept, it should be covered by means of an inverted drinking glass or, as shown in Fig. 6, by a glass or porcelain cover. Such covers, or sanitary milk caps abercrombie , as they are called, are very convenient for this purpose and may be purchased at a slight cost.
Another precaution that should be taken is never to mix stale milk with fresh milk, because the entire quantity will become sour in the same length of time as the stale milk would. Also, milk that has been poured into a pitcher or any other open vessel and allowed to stand exposed to the air for some time should never be put back into the bottle with the remaining milk. Such milk is sure to be contaminated with the germs that are always present in the dust constantly circulating in the air. It is sometimes necessary to keep milk in a vessel other than the bottle in which it is delivered. In such an event, the vessel that is used should be washed thoroughly, boiled in clean water, and cooled before the milk is poured into it.
Particular care should be taken of the empty milk bottles. They should never be used for anything except milk. Before they are returned to the dairyman to be used again, they should first be rinsed with cold water, then washed thoroughly with hot, soapy water, and finally rinsed with hot water. If there is illness in the home, the washed bottles should be put into a pan of cool water, allowed to come to a boil, and permitted to boil for a few minutes. Such attention will free the bottles from any contamination they might have received. The dairyman, of course, gives the bottles further attention before he uses them again, but the housewife should do her part by making sure that they are thoroughly cleansed before they are collected by him.
As has been pointed out, milk should, upon being received, be kept in the coolest place available, which, in the majority of homes at the present time, is the refrigerator. In making use of the refrigerator for this purpose, the housewife should put into practice what she learned in Essentials of Cookery Part 2, concerning the proper placing of food in the refrigerator, remembering that milk should be placed where it will remain the coolest and where it is least likely to absorb odors. She should also bear in mind that the temperature inside of a refrigerator varies with that of the surrounding air. It is because of this fact that milk often sours when the temperature is high, as in summer, for instance, even though it is kept in the refrigerator.
In case a refrigerator is not available, it will be necessary to resort to other means of keeping milk cool. A cool cellar or basement is an excellent substitute, but if milk is kept in either of these places, it must be tightly covered. Then, too, the spring house with its stream of running water is fully as good as a refrigerator And is used extensively in farming districts. But even though a housewife has none of these at her disposal, she need not be deprived of fresh milk, for there are still other ways of keeping milk cool and consequently fresh. A very simple way in which to keep milk cool is to weight down the bottles in a vessel that is deeper than they are and then pour cold water into the vessel until it reaches the top of the bottles, replacing the water occasionally as it becomes warm. A still better way, however, so far as convenience and results are concerned. Then place this end in a pan of cold water that stands higher than the bottle. Such an arrangement will keep the cloth wet constantly and by the evaporation of the water from it will cause the milk to remain cool.
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