Let the young cook never forget that cleanliness is the chief cardinal virtue of the kitchen; the first preparation for roasting is to take care that the spit be properly cleaned with sand and water; nothing else. When it has been well scoured with this, dry it with a clean cloth. If spits are wiped clean as soon as the meat is drawn from them, and while they are hot, a very little cleaning will be required. The less the spit is passed through the meat the better;[74-*] and, before you spit it, joint it properly, especially necks and loins, that the carver may separate them easily and neatly, and take especial care it be evenly balanced on the spit, that its motion may be regular, and the fire operate equally on each part of it; therefore, be provided with balancing-skewers and cookholds, and see it is properly jointed.
Roasting should be done by the radiant heat of a clear, glowing fire, otherwise it is in fact _baked_: the machines the economical grate-makers call ROASTERS, are, in plain English, ovens.
Count Rumford was certainly an exact economist of fuel, when he contrived these things; and those philosophers who try all questions "according to Cocker" may vote for baked victuals; but the rational epicure, who has been accustomed to enjoy beef well roasted, will soon be convinced that the poet who wrote our national ballad at the end of this chapter, was not inspired by Sir Benjamin Thompson's cookery.
All your attention in roasting will be thrown away, if you do not take care that your meat, especially beef, has been kept long enough to be tender. See "ADVICE TO COOKS," and obs. to No. 68.
Make up the fire in time; let it be proportioned to the dinner to be dressed, and about three or four inches longer at each end than the thing to be roasted, or the ends of the meat cannot be done nice and brown.
A cook must be as particular to proportion her fire to the business she has to do, as a chemist: the degree of heat most desirable for dressing the different sorts of food ought to be attended to with the utmost precision.
The fire that is but just sufficient to receive the noble sirloin (No. 19), will parch up a lighter joint.
From half an hour to an hour before you begin to roast, prepare the fire by putting a few coals on, which will be sufficiently lighted by the time you wish to make use of your fire; between the bars, and on the top, put small or large coals, according to the bulk of the joint, and the time the fire is required to be strong; after which, throw the cinders (wetted) at the back.