The Cooking Of Albumen

Let us ever keep in mind that digestibility and solubility are nearly synonymous terms in cookery. The albumen of egg is soluble in cold water. In water at 134° Fahr. white fibres appear throughout, and at 160° Fahr. the albumen has coagulated throughout the egg, but is still tender and jelly-like, and, being soluble, has lost little in digestibility. Now, when the hard state of an egg that has been cooked in boiling water (212° Fahr.) and the horny and still harder state of the egg that has been fried at 300° Fahr. is considered, it must be plain that albumen in eggs loses in solubility (digestibility) as the temperature to which it is subjected is raised. Whatever is true in respect to the cooking of albumen in eggs, is equally true in respect to the cooking of albumen in meat and fish, and the corresponding substance in the gluten of grains and the casein of milk and cheese. In general, sentiment, or taste, demands at least, a slight coagulation of the albuminous juices in articles of food, but any cookery that carries this coagulation beyond the jellying stage is wasteful of product and of digestive energy. The "cooking point" of albumen, then, does not correspond to the boiling point of water; it is below this point. In actual practice it is a temperature between 16o° and 18o° Fahr. This point can be approximately secured and maintained, when substances are cooked in water kept at the simmering point, 185° Fahr., or when they are cooked in a double boiler. Albumen, as stated above, is found in the juices of flesh; these juices are stored up in hollow fibres bound together by connective tissues. When these fibres are cut through the juices are exposed, and if the meat be put into cold water, or into water or an oven below a temperature of about 134° Fahr., the juices containing the albumen are drawn out and dissolved in the water, or evaporated in the oven. They are withdrawn from the meat, which thus becomes poorer in quality and less nutritious.

But if the meat be put into boiling water or a hot oven, the albumen in the fibres hardens or coagulates at once and closes the pores, or mouths, through which the juices must pass out; from five to fifteen minutes' cooking at this temperature suffices to form a thick coating over the cut surface and to keep the nutritious juices within the meat. This is the key to the proper method of cooking meat or fish.

When these are to be cooked, as for soups or stews, and the nutritive juices are to be drawn out into the water, they should be set to cook in cold water. When these are to be served as boiled meats, or roasts, and the nutritious juices are to be retained, the meat should be subjected, at the outset, to a high temperature, viz., that of boiling water, a very hot oven, or to the direct rays of the fire. But when once the initial process has been accomplished, the cooking of both must be completed at such a temperature as will insure a tender, jelly-like consistency throughout; that is, the temperature of the soup kettle should be raised, while that of the boiling or roasting meat should be lowered to the simmering point of water.

The cooking of albumen or starch, when each is cooked separately, is a simple matter; the difficulty arises when the two are combined in the same dish.