Leading Culinary Operations

This includes (1) clear soups, (2) thick soups, (3) special soups of various kinds, (4) classical vegetable soups, including some local preparations.

Except for the roasts, grills, and fryings, which will be discussed later, all culinary operations dealing with meat are related to one of the four following methods: Braising, No. 250, Poëlings, poaching, and sautés.

These four methods of cooking belong, however, to the sauces, and this explains how it is that the latter hold such a pre-eminent position in French cookery.

Before devoting any attention to particular formulæ, which will be given in the second part of this work, it seemed desirable to me to recapitulate in a general way the theory of each of these cooking methods. These theories are of paramount importance, since it is only with a complete knowledge of them that good results may be obtained by the culinary operator.

Roasts.

Of the two usual methods of roasting, the spit will always be used in preference to the oven, if only on account of the conditions under which the operation is effected, and whatever be the kind of fuel used—wood, coal, or gas.

The reason of this preference is clear if it be remembered that, in spite of every possible precaution during the progress of an oven roast, it is impossible to avoid an accumulation of vapour around the cooking object in a closed oven. And this steam is more particularly objectionable inasmuch as it is excessive in the case of delicately flavoured meats, which latter are almost if not entirely impaired thereby.

The spitted roast, on the contrary, cooks in the open in a dry atmosphere, and by this means retains its own peculiar flavour. Hence the unquestionable superiority of spitted roasts over the oven kind, especially in respect of small feathered game.

In certain circumstances and places there is no choice of means, and, nolens volens, the oven has to be used; but, in this case at least, all possible precautions should be observed in order to counteract the effects of the steam above mentioned.

Grills may be divided into four classes, of which each demands particular care. They are: (1) Red-meat grills (beef and mutton); (2) White-meat grills (veal, lamb, poultry); (3) Fish; (4) Grills coated with butter and bread-crumbs.

Various Preparations.

According to the case, the adjunct is either the braising-liquor, reduced and with all grease removed, or the same completed by means of an addition of meat-glaze.

Occasionally, it may be the braising-liquor slightly thickened with half-glaze and finished with butter and the juice of a lemon.