N.B. For receipts to cook veal, see from No. 512 to No. 521.
In plain English, is understood to mean boiled beef; but its culinary acceptation, in the French kitchen, is fresh beef dressed without boiling, and only very gently simmered by a slow fire.
Cooks have seldom any notion, that good soup can be made without destroying a great deal of meat; however, by a judicious regulation of the fire, and a vigilant attendance on the soup-kettle, this may be accomplished. You shall have a tureen of such soup as will satisfy the most fastidious palate, and the meat make its appearance at table, at the same time, in possession of a full portion of nutritious succulence.
This requires nothing more than to stew the meat very slowly (instead of keeping the pot boiling a gallop, as common cooks too commonly do), and to take it up as soon as it is done enough. See "Soup and bouilli" (No. 238), "Shin of beef stewed" (No. 493), "Scotch barley broth" (No. 204).
Meat cooked in this manner affords much more nourishment than it does dressed in the common way, is easy of digestion in proportion as it is tender, and an invigorating, substantial diet, especially valuable to the poor, whose laborious employments require support.
If they could get good eating put within their reach, they would often go to the butcher's shop, when they now run to the public-house.
Among the variety of schemes that have been suggested for bettering the condition of the poor, a more useful or extensive charity cannot be devised, than that of instructing them in economical and comfortable cookery, except providing them with spectacles.
"The poor in Scotland, and on the Continent, manage much better. Oatmeal porridge (Nos. 205 and 572) and milk, constitute the breakfast and supper of those patterns of industry, frugality, and temperance, the Scottish peasantry.
"When they can afford meat, they form with it a large quantity of barley broth (No. 204), with a variety of vegetables, by boiling the whole a long time, enough to serve the family for several days.
"When they cannot afford meat, they make broth of barley and other vegetables, with a lump of butter (see No. 229), all of which they boil for many hours, and this with oat cakes forms their dinner." COCHRANE'S _Seaman's Guide_, p. 34.