necessary, in the cooking of flesh, to expose it to a higher temperature than 140°. But, at that temperature, the colouring matter of the blood is not yet coagulated; the flesh, indeed, is eatable, but when it contains blood, it acquires, under these circumstances, a bloody appearance, which it only loses, Underdone when it has acquired, throughout the whole mass, a temperature of 150° to 158°.

meat.

sooner done

In the interior of a very large piece of flesh, which has been boiled or roasted, we can tell with certainty the temperature attained in the different parts, by the colours which they present. At all those parts which appear bloody, the temperature has not reached 144°. In the boiling or roasting of Poultry is poultry, the flesh of which is white, and contains than beef little blood, the temperature of the inner parts, when the flesh has been well cooked, seldom exceeds 130° or 140°. The flesh of poultry or game is therefore sooner dressed (ready, or done as it is called) than flesh which contains much blood, such as beef or mutton.

By enveloping small pieces of flesh (as is often done in the case of small birds, such as quails, ortolans, larks, and even partridges) with a covering of lard, the extraction of the sapid constituents from the flesh by its juices, and the evaporation of the water, which causes hardening, are prevented; and the surface, as well as the subjacent parts, are kept in the tender state, which is otherwise only found in the inner portions of large masses of flesh.

or mutton.

Use of a

covering of

lard in

roasting.

How meat

is to be boiled to obtain good

soup.

The introduction of the piece of raw flesh into water already boiling is the best process for the dressing of the meat, but the most unfavourable for the quality of the soup. If, on the contrary, the piece of raw meat be placed in cold water, and this brought very gradually to the boiling point, there occurs, from the first moment, an interchange between the juices of the flesh and the external water. The soluble and sapid constituents of the flesh are dissolved in the water, and the water penetrates into the interior of the mass, which it extracts more or less completely. The flesh loses, while the soup gains, in sapid matters; and, by the separation of albumen, which is commonly removed by skimming, as it rises to the surface of the water when coagulated, the surface of the meat more particularly loses its tenderness and shortness (as it is called), Meat from becoming tough and hard. The thinner the piece of flesh, the more completely does it acquire the last-mentioned qualities; and if in this state it be digestible eaten without the soup, it not only loses much of its nutritive properties, but also of its digestibility, inasmuch as the juice of the flesh itself, the constituents of which are now found in the soup, are thus prevented from taking part in the digestive process in the stomach. The soup, in fact, contains two of the chief constituents of the gastric juice.

which soup

has been made is

neither nu

tritious nor

without the

soup.

Gelatine is not the

It has long been customary to ascribe to the source of gelatinous matter dissolved during boiling, which the strength gives to concentrated soup the property of forming

OF THE STRENGTH OR FLAVOUR OF SOUP. 129

of soup.

a jelly, the chief properties or peculiarities of the or flavour soup; but there cannot be a greater mistake. The simplest experiments prove that the amount of dissolved gelatine in well-prepared soup is so small, that it cannot come into calculation in explaining its properties. Gelatine is, in itself, quite tasteless, and consequently the taste of the soup cannot be derived from it.

ments to

ascertain

the amount

of gelatine the making

dissolved in

of soup.

In order to determine the amount of gelatinous Experimatter dissolved in the boiling of flesh under the most favourable circumstances, finely-chopped meat was exhausted with cold water, pressed as dry as possible, and the residue, fibres and membranes, boiled for five hours with ten times its weight of water, the liquid pressed out from the insoluble matter, and evaporated to dryness in the water-bath. The soup thus obtained, from beef and veal, was tasteless, or rather had a peculiar mawkish taste, which to most persons was nauseous. That from veal gelatinised when reduced to half, that from beef when reduced to 1-16th of its original volume.

3,000 grammes of lixiviated veal (6 lbs.) yielded, under these circumstances, after five hours' boiling, 47.5 gms. of matter dissolved by the water (gelatine, &c.).

1,000 gms. of lixiviated beef (2 lbs.) yielded, in the same way, 6 gms. of gelatine, &c.

It appears from these experiments, that the muscular fibres and membranes of the calf and ox, in

K

Amount of

matter dis

that state in which they present to the dissolving energy of the water the largest surface, and after five hours' boiling, yielded, the former only 1.576 per cent., the latter 0.6 per cent. of soluble matter, of which the gelatine certainly does not constitute one-half, since some part or constituent of the fibrine is also dissolved under these circumstances.

Those constituents of 1,000 gms. or 2 lbs. of beef, which are soluble in cold water, weighed, when dry, 60 gms., of which 29.5 gms. were al

bumen.

Under the most favourable circumstances, there

solved from fore, we obtain, from 1,000 gms. of beef

meat by

hot and

cold water.

{Coagulated

By Boiling.

In the solution.....................

Soluble in cold water

[Coagulated Albumen

30.5

It follows, that boiling water, when allowed to act for five hours on finely-chopped flesh, yet does not dissolve more than the fifth part of the matters soluble in cold water, even after the albumen has been separated by heating the cold infusion; and that this fifth part, besides, does not consist of pure gelatine, but contains all the products dissolved out of the muscular fibres by long boiling.

Consequently the efficacy of soup, or decoction of flesh, cannot depend on the gelatine it contains.

More solu

ble matter

The flesh of poultry contains, for equal weights, more of the matters soluble in cold water, and in poultry remaining dissolved after the coagulation of the beef. albumen, than beef does.

From 1,000 gms, of fowl, cold water takes up 80 gms. of soluble matter, of which 47 gms. consist of albumen, and 33 gms. remain dissolved in the liquid when boiled.

than in

tious and

soup exist

ready

The characters of flesh described in the preceding The nutriparagraphs at once suggest the best method of pre- sapid ingreparing, in the short space of a few minutes, the dients of strongest and most highly-flavoured soup; and any formed in one may convince himself, by the simplest experi- flesh. ments, of the truth of the assertion made by Proust, that those constituents of soup, on which its taste and other properties depend, exist ready formed in the flesh, and are not in any way products of the operation of boiling.

thod of

soup.

When 1 lb. of lean beef, free of fat, and sepa- Best merated from the bones, in the finely-chopped state in preparing which it is used for beef sausages or mince-meat, is uniformly mixed with its own weight of cold water, slowly heated to boiling, and the liquid, after boiling briskly for a minute or two, is strained through a towel from the coagulated albumen and the fibrine, now become hard and horny, we obtain an equal weight of the most aromatic soup, of such strength as cannot be obtained, even by boil