ndispensable, and the flavor undergoes no change. This
remark on pepper applies also to broiling and frying. Always pepper
_after_ the article is cooked, and both for appearance and delicacy of
flavor white pepper should always be used in preference to black.

Meat, while in the oven, should be carefully turned about so that it may
brown equally, and when it has been in half the time you intend to give
it, or when the upper surface is well browned, turn it over. When it
comes out of the oven put it on a hot dish, then carefully pour off the
fat by holding the corner of the meat pan over your dripping-pan, and
very gently allowing the fat to run off; do not shake it; when you see
the thick brown sediment beginning to run too, check it; if there is
still much fat on the surface, take it off with a spoon; then pour into
the pan a little boiling water and salt, in quantity according to the
quantity of sediment or glaze in the pan, and with a spoon rub off every
speck of the dried gravy on the bottom and sides of the pan. Add no
flour, the gravy must be thick enough with its own richness. If you have
added too much water, so that it looks poor, you may always boil it down
by setting the pan on the stove for a few minutes; but it is better to
put very little water at first, and add as the richness of the gravy
allows. Now you have a rich brown gravy, instead of the thick
whitey-brown broth so often served with roast meat. Every drop of this
gravy and that from the dish should be carefully saved if left over.

Save all dripping, except from mutton or meat with which onions are
cooked, for purposes which I shall indicate in another place.

Veal and pork require to be very thoroughly cooked. For them, therefore,
the oven must not be too hot, neither must it be lukewarm, a good even
heat is best; if likely to get too brown before it is thoroughly cooked,
open the oven door.

CHAPTER IX.

BOILING.

BOILING is one of the things about which cooks are most careless;
theoretically they almost always know meat should be slowly boiled, but
their idea of "slow" is ruled by the fire; they never attempt to rule
that. There is a good rule given by Gouffe as to what slow boiling
actually is: the surface of the pot should only show signs of ebullition
at one side, just an occasional bubble. _Simmering_ is a still slower
process, and in this the pot should have only a sizzling round one part
of the edge. All fresh meat should boi