Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1885 — How to Cook an Egg. [ARTICLE]

How to Cook an Egg.

Prof. W. W. Williams, in his “Chemistry of Cookery, ” writes: There is a great waste in the ordinary process by which eggs are'cooked. What we want to effect when we cook an egg is to coagulate the albumen, of which the egg is mainly composed. Yet, when we cook an egg by the common method of throwing it into water at 212 degrees, and keeping it there until we guess that it must be “clone,” we run the risk cf rendering it almost uneatable. The cooking temperature of albumen is not 212 degrees, but 52 degrees below that point; and, as albumen exists in meat as well as in egg, the truth is oue which ought never for an instant to be forgotten by the cook who aspires to be anything more than a bungler. ' He tells us how to cook an egg to perfection without running the risk of rendering it indigestible. The egg should be put into boiling water, and simply left there for ten minutes or more. The prolongation of the immersion can do no harm to the “white;” but it should be borne in mind that, for some not very well understood reason, long exposure to a temperature that never rises above, say, 180 degrees will harden the y6lk. This method of cooking may be, and has been, successfully applied to other food than eggs. It is the principle by which the so-called “Norwegian cooking apparatus” acts. In the preparation, indeed, of all albuminous fooc sit should be remembered that overcooking produces toughness, and that it is by no means necessary in any case to employ long periods of high temperatnre to obtain the best results. High temperature is, however, useful, if employed for a short period at the beginning of an operation, to coagulate the albumen near the outer surface of a cooking joint, or, in other words, to seal up the juices within, and so to confine the “goodness” and flavor of the meat. In cooking a leg of mutton in water, for instance, the meat should be put into boiling water, which should be kept boiling for four or five minutes until a coating of firmly coagulated albumen envelops the joint. Afterward a temperature of about 180 degrees maintained for half as long again as the commonly prescribed boiling period will satisfactorily complete the cooking. Owing to her ignorance of these and kindred facts, the cook wastes not only her fuel, but, which is far mere important, her meat.