"104. If a vessel containing water be placed over a steady fire, the water will grow continually hotter till it reaches the limit of boiling, after which the regular accessions of heat are wholly spent in converting it into steam.
"Water remains at the same pitch of temperature, however fiercely it boils. The only difference is, that with a strong fire it sooner comes to boil, and more quickly boils away, and is converted into steam."--BUCHANAN _on the Economy of Fuel_, 1810.
The editor placed a thermometer in water in that state which cooks call gentle simmering; the heat was 212°, i. e. the same degree as the strongest boiling.
Two mutton chops were covered with cold water, and one boiled a gallop, and the other simmered very gently for three quarters of an hour: the chop which was slowly simmered was decidedly superior to that which was boiled; it was much tenderer, more juicy, and much higher flavoured. The liquor which boiled fast was in like proportion more savoury, and when cold had much more fat on its surface. This explains why quick boiling renders meat hard, &c., because its juices are extracted in a greater degree.
Reckon the time from its first coming to a boil.
The old rule of 15 minutes to a pound of meat, we think rather too little: the slower it boils, the tenderer, the plumper, and whiter it will be.
For those who choose their food thoroughly cooked (which all will who have any regard for their stomachs), twenty minutes to a pound for fresh, and rather more for salted meat, will not be found too much for gentle simmering by the side of the fire, allowing more or less time, according to the thickness of the joint, and the coldness of the weather: to know the state of which, let a thermometer be placed in the pantry; and when it falls below 40°, tell your cook to give rather more time in both roasting and boiling, always remembering, the slower it boils the better.
Without some practice it is difficult to teach any art; and cooks seem to suppose they must be right, if they put meat into a pot, and set it over the fire for a certain time, making no allowance whether it simmers without a bubble or boils a gallop.
Fresh-killed meat will take much longer time boiling than that which has been kept till it is what the butchers call _ripe_, and longer in _cold_ than in _warm_ weather: if it be _frozen_, it must be thawed before boiling as before roasting; if it be fresh-killed, it will be tough and hard, if you stew it ever so long, and ever so gently. In cold weather, the night before the day you dress it, bring it into a place of which the temperature is not less than 45 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer.