Composition and food value. How to make tough cuts of meat palatable. Pork drops with fried apples. Beef or mutton stew with. vegetables and dumplings. Rabbit stew. Bacon.
Meats are rich in protein and usually in fats, Lut are lacking in the carbohydrates. They build up the muscular tissue, furnish heat and energy, are more stimulating and s strengthening than any other fool and satisfy hunger for a greater length of time. For the most part, meats are a very expensive food. One cannot perform more labour by the use of a meat diet than on a diet of veetable foods.
Those who use large quantities of meat suffer from many disturbances of the system. Hence it should form a very small part of the diet. The cuts of meat that come from those portions of the animal's body that are much exercised are tough, owing to the development of the connective tissues, but they contain a high percentage of nutrition. For the same reason, the moat from older animals is apt to be tough. The flesh of chickens, turkeys, and other fowls is very nutritious and is easily digested if not too fat.
The flavour of meats is developed by cooking. Dry heat develops the best flavour, hence the tender cuts are cooked by the processes known as broiling and roasting. Tough cuts of meat require long, slow cooking in moist heat, hence they are prepared in the form of stews and pot roasts or are used in meat soups.
After the teacher has found out what meats are used in the homes or what the school can afford to use, she should determine upon a method of cooking that will make the meat palatable, digestible, and attractive. If it can be prepared as a stew she should use a recipe in which vegetables are also used and, if possible, have dumplings prepared to serve with the meat, as a review of the lesson on batters.
Beef or Mutton Stew
2 1b. beef or mutton 3/4 c. carrot cut in dice
1 qt. water 4 potatoes cut in 1/2 inch slices
Salt, pepper, flour to dredge 1 tsp. salt
1 onion, cut in slices 1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 c. turnip cut in dice 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. cold water
Remove the fat and cut the meat into 1-inch pieces. Reserve half of the best pieces of meat, put the rest of the meat and the bone into cold water, soak for one hour, then heat until it bubbles. Season half the raw meat, and roll it in the flour, melt the fat in a frying-pan, remove the scraps, brown the sliced onion and then the floured meat in the hot fat, add both to the stew, and cook for 2 hours at a low temperature. To this add the vegetables and cook % hour; then add the flour and seasonings, which have been nixed with one-half cup of cold water, and cook for 1/2 hour longer, until the meat and vegetables are tender. Remove the bone from the stew and serve. Serves six to eight.
If beef and mutton are not commonly used and are not readily obtainable, but rabbit can be secured, substitute rabbit for beef in the stew. After the rabbit has been thoroughly cleaned, cut up in eight pieces (four leg and four body pieces), season. and dredge with flour, brown in the fat, and proceed as with Beef Stew.
2 c. flour 1/2 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking-powder 2 tbsp. fat (lard or butter) 3/4 c. milk or water (about)
Sift, the dry ingredients together, cut in the butter, and add the milk gradually, to make a soft dough. Roll out on a floured board, cut with a biscuit cutter, lay on top of meat in a stew pan (they should not. sink into the liquid), cover the kettle closely, keep the stew boiling, and cook the dumplings for 10 minutes without removing the lid. (Do not put the dumplings in to cook until the meat is tender.)
NOTE.— If desired, the rolling may be eliminated and, after mixing, the dough may be dropped by spoonfuls into the stew.
To Cook Bacon
Place thin slices of bacon from which the rind has been removed in a hot frying-pan, and pour off the fat as fast as it melts. Cook until the bacon is crisp and brown, turning frequently. Another method of cooking is to lay the bacon on a rack in a baking-pan and bake in a hot oven until crisp and brown.
Wipe the chops with a clamp cloth, and place in a hot frying-pan. Turn frequently at first and cook slowly until well browned on each side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Wash and core the apples and slice to the centre. Roll in flour if very juicy.
After the chops have been removed from the pan, lay the apples in and cook till tender. Serve around the chops.
If the meat is to require two or three hours cooking, arrange to have the lesson divided and given at two periods through the day. Half an hour before opening the morning session or a portion of the morning or noun recess may he sufficient time to put the meat on to cook and to prepare the vegetables. When the second class period is called, the vegetables should he added to the partially cooked meat and the dumplings should be made. It would be well to serve the completed dish at the lunch period. There should be as much discussion regarding the kinds of meat, their food value, and the methods of cooking as time permits: but it may be necessary to complete this discussion at some other class period.
Should it be possible for the teacher to give additional lessons on meat, it. might he well to devote one lesson to the preparation and cooking of poultry, directions for which may be secured from any reliable cook-book.