Now as to Boiling meat. Sometimes we boil it in order to extract all
the goodness as for soup, sometimes for the sake of cooking meat or
fish in this special way. In the first case it should be put over a
slow fire in cold water, and when it has reached the boiling-point be
withdrawn and allowed to cook without boiling again, and cooking a very
long time in this way much improves the flavour of broth or soup. But
when the meat is intended to be eaten, the water into which it is put
should nearly boil when it is first put in with its vegetables, and
then be brought rather quickly to the boiling-point, drawn away, and
kept boiling very gently indeed. Never on any account let it boil fast,
still it must _just_ boil or else the meat will not cook. Fast boiling
ruins the soup and toughens the meat. When rice is added to broth, it
is washed and put in about an hour before the soup is finished; when
barley is put in, it can be added as soon as the broth boils, as it
takes longer to soften. A fair-sized piece of meat with vegetables will
take from two to three hours to boil it well. For Scotch broth the
vegetables are chopped small and the barley and these boiled together
with the mutton.
When boiling fish the water should be at the boiling-point when it is
put in, but only just reach that point, or rather not quite reach it
afterwards. The water should be salted, and a few drops of vinegar will
help to keep the flakes of fish firm. Fish should simmer till the skin
shows signs of cracking, then it is sufficiently done. Fish that is
boiled fast is flavourless and ragged. But a pudding or anything cooked
in a mould may boil as fast as you please.
Some vegetables are better for putting to cook in cold water, others
must have boiling water. Dried vegetables and some potatoes want cold
water, and dried peas and beans want long previous soaking. Green
vegetables and green peas, on the other hand, want plunging into fast
boiling salted water and to be kept boiling fast. Potatoes and some of
the other root vegetables will steam better than they will boil.