Chapter 8 assembled 20jy02
Fat helps to keep the body warm, so the menu should include more fried foods, pastry, and steamed puddings in the winter than in the summer.
Fat also supplies the body with energy in a very concentrated form. People doing heavy physical work or taking a great deal of exercise need more than others.
Because fat takes longer to digest than most foods, it gives 'staying power' and prevents people from getting tired and hungry too soon after a meal. On the other hand, if too much fat is eaten it does not digest properly, and indigestion or sickness is the result.
A little fat helps to make other foods more appetizing, and dishes lacking in fat can be very dull. For example, a little fat added to boiled vegetables before serving is a great improvement.
Apart from those listed above, there are other foods which contain some fat: meats, bacon, ham, poultry, game, milk, cheese, eggs, nuts, and oily fish such as herrings and salmon.
Two very important vitamins are found in some fats - vitamins A and D in butter, margarine, fish-liver oils, and oily fish such as herrings and sardines. The only other good source of Vitamin D is sunshine, so in winter it is advisable to have liberal amounts of foods containing vitamin D or to take regular doses of cod-liver oil or its equivalent. Vitamin D is essential for building and maintaining strong bones and teeth.
75
76 THE PENGUIN COOKERY BOOK
Fats and oils should be kept away from foods with a strong flavour, or they will become tainted. They should be wrapped in paper and kept in as cool a place as possible. Dripping should be kept in a covered jar and, if it is to last any length of time, should be clarified (see #147), as pieces of food and gravy soon become mouldy and spoil the fat.
A good supply of clean dripping suitable for all cooking purposes can be obtained by rendering down suet and pieces of fat cut from raw or cooked meat. Rendering is merely heating in some way to melt the fat from the surrounding tissues. Care must be taken to see that it is not overheated in the process, or the fat will be spoiled.
Method 1. Cut the fat in small pieces or mince it, put it in a pan in a slow to moderate oven, and cook until the fat has melted and only pieces of brown tissue are left. Strain into a clean basin.
Method 2. Prepare the fat as before and place in a pan without a lid, and with a very little water. Boil until the water has been driven oft; and then heat very gently until the fat has melted. Strain as before. A safer way of heating is to put the fat in a double boiler. In this case the initial water will not be needed.
This gives rendered fat or dripping an excellent flavour and makes
it ideal for all savoury sauces, vegetable cooking, and other savoury
dishes.
8 oz. [225g] rendered fat or dripping (1 c.)
2
stalks celery, chopped OR a few mushroom peelings
4 bacon
rinds, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
½ bay leaf
FATS AND FRYING 77
1 onion, chopped
Tiny sprig of thyme
1 sprig parsley
Stew the vegetables and flavourings in ½-1 oz. of the fat until they are tender. Add the rest of the fat and heat very slowly until it is melted but not very hot. Strain into a clean, dry basin and leave to set.
Used dripping is generally full of pieces of food and gravy, and this makes it unsuitable for frying or for most cooking purposes. It can be cleaned, or clarified, quite easily. It is a good idea to keep one jar for used dripping and another for clarified dripping. When the used dripping jar is full, clarify it, and you can go on using the same fat a number of times.
1. Put the dripping in a pan without the lid, and cover with cold water. If two or three pieces of raw potato are added they will absorb flavours. Bring to the boil and boil gently for 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Strain into a clean basin and leave until cold.
3. Lift the fat off the top of the water and scrape any particles off the bottom of the fat.
4. This fat is now ready for cakes, pastry, and spreads, but if it is wanted for keeping or for frying, all the water must be evaporated by melting the fat in a pan and heating until it stops bubbling. Pour into a Clean, dry jar.
Butter and margarine are most people's choice, with good beef dripping to spread on hot toast. Goose dripping can be used for the same purpose, and in some countries pork fat or lard is used.
For economical spreading a fat should be soft, so warm it slightly if it is very cold, and beat well. Butter may he made to go much farther by beating in warm milk or water, 4 oz. [110g] butter taking 2-3 Tbs. of liquid.
78 THE PENGUIN COOKERY ROOK
BUTTER. Because of the excellent flavour of all goods baked with butter, it is still considered the ideal fat to use for cakes, pastry, and puddings.
MARGARINE. Suitable for all purposes. It does not make such a short pastry as butter or lard, and better results are obtained if half lard and half margarine are used in pastry-making.
LARD. This is the 'shortest' of all fats, and in pastry-making less need be used than with other fats. It is excellent mixed with the harder fats, such as margarine or mutton dripping. It may be used in cakes, but less is required than when butter or margarine is used and, because lard has a pronounced flavour, it should be used alone only in cakes which have flavouring or spices added.
DRIPPING. Clarified beef dripping is excellent for cakes and pastry, but mutton dripping is not satisfactory, as it is too hard. A mixture of the two fats is very good. Warm the mutton fat and beat in the beef dripping.
COOKING FATS. These are sometimes hard fats and sometimes soft. Hard fats may be softened by adding oil; see below. Soft fats are suitable for cakes and pastry, but they are usually flavourless and lack the vitamins found in butter and margarine.
SUET. When rendered down, suet can be used in the same way as dripping, but in its natural state it is suitable only for suet pastry and certain types of steamed puddings. To prepare suet for pastry remove any skin, and grate or chop finely. Dredge with flour to prevent the flakes from sticking together. Packet suets have already been grated and mixed with a starchy substance to keep the flakes separate.
OIL. This is suitable for mixing cakes, pastry, and
FATS AND FRYING 79
similar foods. 1 oz. [30g] (2 Tbs.) oil will replace 2 oz. [55g] (4 Tbs.) of other fat. The oil is used to mix the dry ingredients, together with any additional liquid needed to make the cake the right consistency. Hard dripping and cooking fats are very much improved if they are beaten with a fork to soften them and 2 tsp. of oil to each 4 oz. [110g] fat is then beaten in thoroughly.
The best fats to use for frying are those which have what is known as a high 'smoking temperature' - that means they can be heated to a very high temperature without burning. Oils have the highest smoking temperature, and are by far the best for deep fat frying. Butter is often used for shallow frying because of the flavour it gives the food, and clean dripping or cooking fat is suitable for browning meat or vegetables as the preliminary stage in cooking.
Fried foods are probably responsible for more indigestion than any others. The reason for this is that unless the food is very carefully fried it soaks up a lot of fat. Fat forms a coating round the starch and protein in the food and hinders its proper digestion. In addition, fat which has been allowed to smoke contains a substance irritating to the intestine.
There are two ways of avoiding this danger: first, see that the food is properly coated before frying, and second, see that the fat used is very hot, and do not try to fry too much at once.
Of the two methods of frying given, Nos.#156 and #157, deep-fat frying is the best to use, but this needs plenty of fat. If deep-fat frying is out of the question, grilling or baking is recommended as being better than the more usual shallow frying, especially for foods which tend to soak up fat.
80 THE PENGUIN COOKERY BOOK
The only foods which can be fried satisfactorily without a Coating of some kind are raw meat, raw potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, eggs, fish, sausages, doughnuts, pancakes, and fritters.
The coating must be something which will set hard as soon as it comes in contact with the hot fat, thus preventing fat from soaking through to the food inside. Incidentally, it also saves fat, for less is used up in frying well-coated food.
Dry the food well and dip it in seasoned flour (see #13), then in milk, and then coat well in flour for a second time.
Dry the food well, and dust it with seasoned flour (see #13). Then dip it in beaten egg and make sure the whole surface is evenly covered. A pastry brush is a great help with this. The egg should be beaten up lightly and mixed with 2 Tbs. Cold water to each egg. One egg coats eight or more rissoles.
After coating with egg, dip the food in fine fresh or dried breadcrumbs (see #772) and pat well to make the crumbs stick. Coarse crumbs should not be used, as they fall off during frying and make the fat dirty. Fresh breadcrumbs give a better colour and flavour to fried foods than the dried. Put the crumbs in a piece of grease-proof paper, place the food in the crumbs, and lift and shake until well coated.
Use the Fritter Batter, #760. Dip the food in seasoned flour. Use a skewer or a fork to hold it, and dip it in the
FATS AND FRYING 81
batter, which should be thick enough to coat the food evenly. Drain for a moment, and then lower into the hot fat.
1. It is difficult to fry well with a cheap, thin pan. Buy the thickest and heaviest you can find. It will be a good investment.
2. Use clean or clarified fat or oil (see #147), and it should be free from moisture, as water in fat makes it splutter when heated, and you will have a greasy mess all over the stove. If the fat has water in it, heat the pan and fat very, very slowly at first, to drive off the water, and if you are careful you will manage to do this without any spluttering. There should be enough fat to cover the bottom of the pan.
3. Heat the fat until a very faint blue haze rises. Then put in the prepared food and cook as
directed. For details of different fried foods consult the index. If the food is thick and requires some time to cook through, lower the heat after it has browned on both sides. With thick veal and pork chops it is a good plan to cover the pan with a lid, as the steam helps to make the food tender (see #345
4. Fat bacon and oily fish such as herrings and sprats may be fried without any fat in the pan, but heat it before adding the food. Overlap rashers of bacon so that only the fat parts touch the pan.
1.A good supply of a suitable fat is essential for this method. It is not much good trying to do deep-fat frying with less than 1½lb. [1350g] of fat or 1 pint [570ml] of oil.
2.Use a deep, heavy pan made of aluminium, iron, or steel. A deep pan is essential, as there must be room for fat to cover the food well, and at the same time the pan must not be more than half full. This is a safety measure,
82 THE PENGUIN COOKERY BOOK
as fat bubbles when food is put in, and it may easily bubble over in a shallow pan. Many pans sold for frying are too shallow for safety.
3. Some utensil is needed for lifting cooked food out of the pan. There are special frying-baskets sold for the purpose, or you can use a perforated spoon or small strainer. If you are buying a frying-basket, choose one a little smaller than the pan, as it will swell on heating. When frying food coated in batter do not put it directly on the hot wires of the basket, or it will stick. Have the basket in the pan and drop the coated food in gently, using a fork or skewer.
4. Heat the fat slowly to begin with. It will bubble at first, showing that water is being evaporated. When it stops bubbling the heat may be increased until frying temperature is reached. It is quite wrong to say food should be cooked in 'boiling hot fat', as fat does not bubble or boil when it is hot enough for frying. While it is bubbling the temperature is only 212 F. [100°C] A candy or fat thermometer can be used for testing the temperature, and is a very useful piece of kitchen equipment to have. If you have no thermometer cut a one-inch cube of stale bread and drop it into the fat. The time this takes to brown tells you the temperature of the fat (see table opposite). Some people recommend looking for a faint blue haze, but as different fats produce a haze at different temperatures, this is a very rough-and-ready method, and will not always give good results.
5. Make sure the food is dry before putting it in the fat. This is to reduce spluttering and bubbling.
Do not try to fry too much at once, or the temperature will fall and, instead of frying crisp and dry, the food will be flabby and greasy. 1½lb. [1350g] of fat will not take more than 3 fish cakes or a good handful of potato chips. The amount largely depends on the degree of heat you are able to maintain under the pan to keep the fat hot.
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Foods which require 15 minutes cooking should be finished at a lower temperature. The fat should always be reheated before a fresh lot of food is put in.
|
Food |
Time for bread to turn light brown |
Temperature |
Cooking Time |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Choux pastry |
2 mins. |
320 F. [160°C] |
15 mins. |
|
Croquettes, fish cakes, and rissoles |
30 secs. |
390 F. [199°C] |
2-3 mins. |
|
Cutlets, whole or thick pieces of fish, or doughnuts |
1 min. |
375 F. [191 C] |
5-10 mins. |
|
Fish fillets, small thin fish |
1 min. |
375 F. [191°C] |
2-3 mins. |
|
Fritters, uncooked filling |
1 min. |
375 F. [191 C] |
2-3 mins. |
|
Fritters, cooked filling |
40 secs. |
385 F. [196°C] |
2-3 mins. |
|
Potato chips |
30 secs. |
390 F. [199°C] |
8-10 mins. |
|
Potato crisps |
30 secs. |
390 F. [199°C] |
1 min. |
|
Whitebait |
30 secs. |
390 F. [199°C] |
2 mins. |
|
|
|
|
|
N.B. Some fats burn at 400 F [204°C], so be careful when heating beyond 390 F [199°C].
6. Have ready a flat tin covered with crumpled absorbent paper, and place the drained food on this, keeping the pieces apart so that they will stay crisp, and keeping them really hot in the oven or warming cupboard.
7. When frying is finished let the fat cool, and then strain into a clean jar. Provided it is not allowed to burn, the same fat can be used many times and added to as required. If there is any fine sediment on the bottom of the cake of fat scrape it off and put it with other fat to be clarified.
Quantities for 8 cakes:
1 lb. [450g] mashed potatoes (2 c.)
1 tsp. onion-juice or grated onion
2 Tbs. Milk.
¼ tsp. mace or nutmeg
84 THE PENGUIN COOKERY BOOK
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
¼ tsp. pepper
Crumbs for coating
2 Tbs. chopped parsley
Fat for frying
Measures level. These are easier to make if the potatoes are mashed while still hot, and nicer if the potatoes are freshly cooked. Mix with the milk and flavourings and leave until cold. Then mould into the required shapes, cylinders, balls, or flat cakes, and coat with egg and crumbs (see #154). Fry in shallow or deep fat, or grill or bake with a small knob of fat on each one. They will take about 10 minutes to grill and 15-20 minutes to bake In a hot oven 450 F. [232°C] Mark 8. It will be found that all mixtures of this kind keep their shape better if they are left to stand for half an hour after coating and before cooking.
Serve with fried or grilled meat or fish, poached egg, or with bacon for breakfast.
¾ lb. [335g] mashed potatoes (1 ½ c.)
Pinch of mace or nutmeg
1 tsp. Worcester sauce
3 oz. [85g] cooked minced meat (½ c.)
1 tsp. onion-juice
1 egg
1 tsp. salt, or to taste
Crumbs for coating
¼ tsp. pepper
Fat for frying
Measures level. Mix and cook as for #158. Serve with a Brown Sauce, #72, or Tomato Sauce, #92.
8 oz. [225g] mashed potatoes (1 c.)
1 tsp. onion-juice
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
8 oz. [225g] cooked or canned flaked fish (1 c.)
Few drops vinegar or lemon-juice
1 tsp. salt, or to taste
1 egg
¼ tsp. pepper
Crumbs for coating
Pinch of mace or nutmeg
Fat for frying
FATS AND FRYING 85
Measures level. Mix and cook as for Recipe No. 158. Serve with Tomato Sauce, No.92, Anchovy Sauce, No. 71, or Chutney Sauce, No. 76.
¾ lb. [335g] mashed potatoes (1 ½ c.)
Pinch of ground mace
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
4 oz. [110g] grated cheese (1 c.)
1 egg
½ tsp. salt
Crumbs for coating
¼ tsp. pepper
Fat for frying.
Measures level. Mix and cook as for No. 158. Serve with Tomato Sauce, No.92, and Lettuce Salad, No.507.
Other recipes for frying are:
Fritters, Nos. 760-5.
Fish, Nos. 251-5.
Meat, Nos. 342-9.
Omelets, Nos. 205-15.
Pancakes, Nos. 755-7.