Douglas's encyclopaedia : a book of reference for bacon curers, bacon factory managers, bacon agents, meat purveyors, meat inspectors, meat salesmen, abattoir superintendents, city, county, or local authority officiers, cold store proprietors and managers, sausage and pork pie makers, and all other industries associated with the meat, pork, provision, and general food trades / compiled and published by William Douglas & Sons Limited.

Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Douglas's encyclopaedia : a book of reference for bacon curers, bacon factory managers, bacon agents, meat purveyors, meat inspectors, meat salesmen, abattoir superintendents, city, county, or local authority officiers, cold store proprietors and managers, sausage and pork pie makers, and all other industries associated with the meat, pork, provision, and general food trades / compiled and published by William Douglas & Sons Limited. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    Beef and Tongue. Beef Points. Beef and Tongue (Special) in Glass Moulds.— Required—pigs’ tongues, beef briskets, flat ribs, flanks, etc The tongues must first be well washed, freed from all saliva, and then immersed with the beef in the following pickle :—A liquor of salt and water is first made, and the scum, as it rises to the top, thoroughly skimmed off. The strength should be 70° on Douglas’s Salinometer. Weigh to each gallon of pickle required, 1 oz. saltpetre, | oz. dry antiseptic, \ lb. moist sugar, \ oz. black peppercorns, | oz. white peppercorns, -|- oz. Jamaica peppercorns, \ oz. Cayenne pods. The peppercorns and Cayenne pods should be tied up in a muslin bag and with the saltpetre, dry antiseptic, and sugar, put into a stewpan with about a quart or so of water, and brought to the boil, stirring until the saltpetre, etc., are thoroughly dissolved. Add the whole to the pickle, and stir the same well. Allow to cool, and it is then ready for use. The pigs’ tongues and meat will require from fifteen to eighteen days in pickle, when they are taken out and well washed and then cooked. Sufficient rinds, pigs’ feet, or any other available jelly- making constituents should be added, or, if not available, add sufficient gelatine to make the liquor into a firm jelly when cool. When properly cooked it is all taken from the kettle, the latter is wiped clean, and the liquor part strained back into it through an ordinary horse-hair sieve. The meat is sliced thin and crosscut into pieces of from one inch to an inch and a half in size, and put back into the kettle. The tongues are skinned and sliced neatly into longitudinal slices, and placed round the sides of the glass moulds in the most attractive way possible. Then the contents of the kettle are poured in to fill up the mould. The moulds are then put into a cool place to set. When thoroughly set, a thin layer of hot lard is poured on the top, and the mould covered up and labelled, or they can be hermetically sealed by using a canning vat. Beef (Braised).—see Braised Beef. Beef Bungs.—see Bungs (Beef). Beef Cervelat Sausage.—Use fresh lean beef (100 lbs.) from which all the blood has been thoroughly drained, dry with a clean cloth. Then add 30 lbs. of fresh, fat pork, chop together finely, and mix with it 35 oz. of salt, 3 oz. ground saltpetre, 35 oz. ground white pepper, and 1 oz. whole white pepper. Stuff tightly into beef middles, tie into sausages 10 inches long. Hang in an airy place for eight days, then smoke for six days. In winter, if exposed to the air, they will keep six weeks without smoking. A beautiful red colour may be given to Cervelat Sausage by heating the salt and saltpetre together, and adding to this mixture | oz. cochineal. Reduce all to a fine powder before mixing with the meat. If the sausages are too light in colour, it may be inferred that the meat is of an inferior grade. Beef (Dried) .—Rub the pieces with salt, saltpetre, and pulverized sugar. Cover with a very strong brine, let them remain for three weeks, then take out, hang in the air for four days, and smoke for a week. These can be kept for any length of time. Beef Points .—If young and freshly killed, the meat should be ingrained with streaks, dots and pieces of suet throughout it. If the animal is healthy and cool when killed, the suet will be very firm, white, dry and crumbly. The lean or ox beef will be a dark red when first cut, changing to a bright or cherry colour on exposure to the air, due probably to its juices coming to the surface. Should be juicy, firm and somewhat elastic, smoothly grained and velvety to the touch. Heifer beef is more closely grained and perhaps less bright in colour, the bones smaller, and the suet a purer white. The meat of a lean animal is inferior. If the fat is yellow, oily or fibrous, it is not prime beef. Too much fat is waste- ful in trimming. Bull beef is the coarsest and most rank in flavour. It is known by its darker colour, close, tough fibre, and the bad odour of the fat. A bluish colour denotes poor beef. A pale, moist muscle indicates a young animal, a deeper hue an older one. The age for prime beef is from three to six years old. A steer will average 800 pounds, a heifer 500. Twenty per cent, of the animal can be counted as bone. Beef is best during the winter and spring, after being grain or stall fed. Grass fed beef may be juicy and tender, but it lacks the flavour of grain beef, and is less solid. Grain or stall fed beef shrinks less in cooking than grass fattened animals. The latter are seldom salted down. Work oxen when fattened make better beef than the steer that has always been fat. The meat on those parts of the animal where the muscles are least called into action are the most tender and succulent. Beef should be kept some time before it is cooked to allow it to ripen. A month in the winter time will greatly improve it, and as long a time as is possible in the summer, if kept in a cooler or cold storage where an even temperature can be maintained. If meats are beginning to spoil, it can be readily told by thrusting a knife into the bone, a decided odour being on the knife blade. Meats that have been frozen lose much of their flavour, though they become more tender. Cooling-rooms should be built to avoid freezing or bringing the meat in contact with the ice, and should aim to keep it at as high and dry a temperature as is possible. Freezing meats hastens decomposition after it sets in. Fresh beef shrinks about one-fifth in cooking. When meats have shrunk in hang- ing impress upon your customers the fact that they will shrink less in cooking. Food Preservative (dry antiseptic) will preserve cut pieces a long time. The hind-quarters have more meat in proportion to the bone, and should bring a much better price, though some claim that the meat from the fore-quarters is more juicy and delicate in flavour. The best steaks are cut from the middle of the rump, and may weigh as much as four pounds when properly cut with the bone and fat. (Trimming somewhat reduces this.) A good steak should be cut one inch thick from a piece of beef that has been kept at least ten days in a cooling-room, and should never be pounded. The orthodox Hebrews never eat the hind quarters of an animal, as it is forbidden them by their religion. The ribs, sirloin and rump are the best pieces for roasting. The round, buttock, edge bone, shin, brisket, shoulder and clod are all excellent stewing and boiling pieces. To prevent meats that flies have touched from spoiling, rub with a little vinegar, drying immediately after. to 10 per cent, of fat. 12 per cent. 3 >> 80 to 90 „ 8 to 30 Meats contain from 5 Eggs Milk Butter - Cheese - Almonds and Nuts - 53 to 66