FRYING.
Frying is often a convenient mode of cookery; it may be performed by a
fire which will not do for roasting or boiling; and by the introduction
of the pan between the meat and the fire, things get more equally
dressed.
The Dutch oven or bonnet is another very convenient utensil for small
things, and a very useful substitute for the jack, the gridiron, or
frying-pan.
A frying-pan should be about four inches deep, with a perfectly flat and
thick bottom, 12 inches long and 9 broad, with perpendicular sides, and
must be half filled with fat: good frying is, in fact, boiling in fat.
To make sure that the pan is quite clean, rub a little fat over it, and
then make it warm, and wipe it out with a clean cloth.
Be very particular in frying, never to use any oil, butter, lard, or
drippings, but what is quite clean, fresh, and free from salt. Any thing
dirty spoils the look; any thing bad-tasted or stale, spoils the
flavour; and salt prevents its browning.
Fine olive oil is the most delicate for frying; but the best oil is
expensive, and bad oil spoils every thing that is dressed with it.
For general purposes, and especially for fish, clean fresh lard is not
near so expensive as oil or clarified butter, and does almost as well.
Butter often burns before you are aware of it; and what you fry will get
a dark and dirty appearance.
Cooks in large kitchens, where there is a great deal of frying, commonly
use mutton or beef suet clarified (see No. 84): if from the kidney, all
the better.
Dripping, if nicely clean and fresh, is almost as good as any thing; if
not clean, it may be easily clarified (see No. 83). Whatever fat you
use, after you have done frying, let it remain in the pan for a few
minutes, and then pour it through a sieve into a clean basin; it will do
three or four times as well as it did at first, _i. e._ if it has not
burned: but, _Mem._ the fat you have fried fish in must not be used for
any other purpose.
To know when the fat is of a proper heat, according to what you are to
fry, is the great secret in frying.
To fry fish, parsley, potatoes, or any thing that is watery, your fire
must be very clear, and the fat quite hot; which you may be pretty sure
of, when it has done hissing, and is still. We cannot insist too
strongly on this point: if the fat is not very hot, you cannot fry fish
either to a good colour, or firm and crisp.
To be quite certain, throw a little bit of bread into the pan; if it
fries crisp, the fat is ready; if it burns the bread, it is too hot.
The fire under the pan must be clear and sharp, otherwise the fat is so
long before it becomes ready, and demands such attendance to prevent the
accident of its catching fire,[81-*] that the patience of cooks is
exhausted, and they frequently, from ignorance or impatience, throw in
what they are going to fry before the fat is half hot enough. Whatever
is so fried will be pale and sodden, and offend the palate and stomach
not less than the eye.
Have a good light to fry by, that you may see when you have got the
right colour: a lamp fixed on a stem, with a loaded foot, which has an
arm that lengthens out, and slides up and down like a reading
candlestick, is a most useful appendage to kitchen fireplaces, which are
very seldom light enough for the nicer operations of cookery.
After all, if you do not thoroughly drain the fat from what you have
fried, especially from those things that are full dressed in bread
crumbs,[82-*] or biscuit powder, &c., your cooking will do you no
credit.
The dryness of fish depends much upon its having been fried in fat of a
due degree of heat; it is then crisp and dry in a few minutes after it
is taken out of the pan: when it is not, lay it on a soft cloth before
the fire, turning it occasionally, till it is. This will sometimes take
15 minutes: therefore, always fry fish as long as this before you want
them, for fear you may find this necessary.
To fry fish, see receipt to fry soles, (No. 145) which is the only
circumstantial account of the process that has yet been printed. If the
cook will study it with a little attention, she must soon become an
accomplished frier.
Frying, though one of the most common of culinary operations, is one
that is least commonly performed perfectly well.
FOOTNOTES:
[81-*] If this unfortunately happens, be not alarmed, but immediately
wet a basket of ashes and throw them down the chimney, and wet a blanket
and hold it close all round the fireplace; as soon as the current of air
is stopped, the fire will be extinguished; with a CHARCOAL STOVE there
is no danger, as the diameter of the pan exceeds that of the fire.