Boiling and Simmering, terms often applied to cooking in water, regardless of temperature, so long as it is on the fire. At the sea-level, water simmers, or bubbles gently below the sur face at 185°, and boils, or bubbles all over the surface, at 212°. Density, weather and altitude vary the boiling temperature more or less, but it is easier to make some cooks understand this, than to convince them that water cannot be made any hotter after it once boils all over, at least not in the ordinary kettle. The scien tifically trained cook knows that ajust a smile at one side of the meats will cook it perfectly, and some of the foreign peasants seem to have known it intuitively, but the average cook in our kitchens piles on the coal until the water edances a and then wonders that her meat is stringy and tasteless. The first knows that if she wishes good broth or stock, she must cut the meat small, put it into cold water and let the juices soak out, then heat this water to the simmering point. But the average cook never can remember when to use hot, when to use boiling and when to use cold water. The educated cook knows that rapid boiling is advisable for the first 5 or 10 minutes, to seal the juices inside in boiled meat,— the thinner the meat the shorter the time and also to cook the starch in grains and vegetables; and that after this, the water should only simmer else there will be great washing out of substance. She knows, too, that when particles of food are to be kept in motion, to prevent adhesion among themselves or to the kettle, as in cooking rice and macaroni, the rapid boiling may be continued that the rice may dance about' But to the average mind the cooking of food in water is probably more or less guesswork, judging by the results.
Stewing is only another form of simmering. In making a soup a large amount of water is used, and in making a stew a small amount. In both, the cooking is continued a long time at a gentle heat. Tough meats are improved in flavor by the union with vegetables, spices and other seasonings. In the soup they are re moved, if it is to be clear, but in the stew they are retained. When dumplings of bis cuit dough are cooked as a cover for the stew, or shortcake is served around the stew, it becomes a pot pie.
Fricasseeing, meaning to fryn is a com bination of frying with stewing, by which a flavor like that in frying, or pan broiling, is obtained.
The term is sometimes used when no real browning is done, the simple warming or stewing in butter at a low temperature, making it, according to some authorities, a fricassee. It is to be regretted that the desire for new names (thinking thereby to have a new dish) has almost obliterated the true meaning of many culinary terms; there seems to be no standard for nomenclature.
Braising is a combination of frying, stew ing and baking, with vegetables, etc., formerly
done in a stew-pan having a hollow in which coals were put for the final browning. It is a common way in foreign lands, where ovens are not much used and fuel scanty, only a little being needed for the slow fire for stewing, and each half-burned bit carefully put out by water and laid aside for another time. Braising is now done in an earthen dish called a casserole, and foods i1 la casserole are becom ing very popular at hotels. It may be done in a granite pan with a tight cover and finished in the &en. It is one of the most savory ways of cooking meat, game and poultry.
Smothering, or is done by quick searing of meat in a little of its own fat, in the stew pan or pot, then adding barely enough water to prevent burning, covering closely (formerly with a lid of dough when it was done in an iron pot before the fire), and cooking slowly in the steam of its own juices. It gives rich, undiluted gravy and very tender fibre; the best way to cook tough lean meat free from bone.
Real steaming is done chiefly in factories, or large establishments, where the steam is confined in boilers and superheated, and then conveyed through pipes to the kettle containing the food. Owing to the expansive force of steam it cannot be confined in an ordi nary kettle, and many of our canned fruits, soups and vegetables are more successfully done there, than they could be at home. But we cook some foods over, or surrounded by boiling water, and call it steaming. In the first way, the food is placed on a perforated pan, above the water, the moist steam surrounds it, and in condensing gives up its heat, which cooks the food. In the second way, a double or farina boiler is used (or a pail inside a common kettle), the heat is conveyed by 'the steam or boiling water through the metal, and thence to the food, which is less hot than the water, as the metal has absorbed some of the heat. Steaming makes tough meat tender and moist, and enables us to cook vegetables and gluti nous foods without the constant attention needed, if cooked over the fire, or in a little water. The Romans had a kind of double boiler, also the chafing dish, which is one va riety, combined with a sautéing pan. Our grandmothers could cook a pot of hastypud ding without burning it; but with the advent of many more glutinous foods and the knowl edge that many foods containing milk and eggs need a low temperature, a great of steamers and double boilers have come into use. Our grandmothers lived in their kitchens; it was but little work to "watch the pot' while they spun or wove, and the great kettle of cider apple sauce seldom had even a hint of scorch ing. But the modern housewife aims to spend as little time as possible in her kitchen. When we learn to think of it as a laboratory, it may tempt (although it may not require) a longer sojourn.