Myra's cookery book

The oven is now often used for roasting meat instead of cooking the joint before the open fire : to many people, however, meat cooked in this way is unpalatable, and, except for its convenience, baking cannot be recommended as a substitute for roasting. Meat is baked in a tin dish, but raised on a stand so that it may not rest in the gravy that drips from it. To prevent it from being dried or burnt, sheets of buttered paper may METHODS OF COOKING. IX be skewered over it, and potatoes or a Yorkshire pudding may be baked in the dish under the meat. The oven is, however, exceedingly well adapted for many methods of slow cooking when regular heat is required. Stews of m.eat, fish, or vegetables may all be cooked in the oven, either in earthen jars or in stewpans — rice baked in this way, with a proper amount of liquid and a little meat or fish, is excellent ; and stock and soup can be as well prepared in the oven as on the fire. Many kinds of fish are nicer when baked than dressed in any other way ; fresh cured hams may be covered with paste and then baked, and will be found very tender and of fine flavour — in fact, any process of cooking that is done in a closed vessel, and that requires gentle and regular heat, may be safely entrusted to the oven. For baking pastry the oven should be moderately hot to raise the paste, but not hot enough to burn it before it is cooked through. When the pastry has been put in, the oven door must be closed, and not opened again until the paste is thoroughly set : if the heat is checked, or allowed to escape, the pastry will fall and become tough. Raised pies require a much hotter oven than is needed for fruit tarts : it is a good plan to heat the oven by burning wood in it for an hour or so before the pie is put in. Resi- nous or scented wood must not, however, be used for this purpose. Meat pies, when sufficiently browned, should be allowed to stand on the top of the oven for an hour or more, that the meat in them may become thoroughly cooked. The paste may be covered with white paper, to preserve it from blacks or dust and from burning. Baked milky puddings, such as rice, sago, custard, etc., require a very gentle oven ; but puddings of the batter kind require more heat to raise them. X MYRA'S COOKERY BOOK. Baked puddings that resemble a souffle, and that have frothed white of eggs mixed with them the moment before they are put in the oven, require a moderate heat, and should be sent to table the instant they are taken out of the oven. A sheet of white paper placed over a pudding, when it is set and slightly browned, will preserve it from burning or from becoming too dark a colour. Large cakes require a well-sustained - heat, or they will not be baked through : when done they should be gently taken out of the moulds and put near the door of the oven to dry the surface, and then laid on their sides on a sieve to cool. Small cakes and gingerbread must be baked in a slow oven, but light cakes, macaroons, ratafias, etc., require rather more heat. Cake tins should be well buttered, and lined with paper. BOILING.