BEEF
Roast beef
Never wash a raw roast, at least not the parts unprotected by the thin skin. Wipe the skin off with vinegar, dry with a soft cloth, and lay the meat, cut sides at top and bottom, upon the grating of your roaster. Dash a cupful of really boiling water over it. They cicatrice the surface and keep in the juices. Dredge with flour, cover and cook ten minutes to the pound, turning all the heat into the oven for fifteen minutes; then shift into a slower oven, or “dampen” the fire. Baste every ten minutes with the gravy dripping into the pan. Ten minutes before dishing the meat, wash freely with butter and dredge with browned flour, to “glaze” the roast.
Never serve “made gravy” with roast beef. Pour the liquid from the pan into a bowl, and when the fat is solid, remove it and clarify for dripping. The residuum will add richness to your soup-stock, or make a savory base for stew or hash.
Serve horseradish sauce and mustard with your rare roast, and put a little of the ruddy juice which exudes as the meat is carved, upon each slice when served.
Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding
Fifteen minutes before taking up the roast just described, skim six tablespoonfuls of fat from the gravy, put into a smaller dripping-pan, or pudding-dish, and set in the oven. Have ready this batter:
Sift an even teaspoonful of salt and one of baking-powder twice with a pint of flour. Beat two eggs light, add to them two cupfuls of milk, turn in the sifted flour and mix quickly. Set the reserved fat upon the upper grating of the oven; when it begins to bubble, turn in the batter, and cook quickly to a fine, golden-brown. Cut into squares and garnish the meat with them when you dish it.
This is a better way than cooking the pudding in the roaster under the meat, as used to be the custom with English cooks.
Réchauffé of beef à la jardiniére
Lay yesterday’s piece of beef in a roasting-pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cover it with thick slices of raw tomatoes. Dash a cupful of boiling water over all, put a close cover on the roaster, and cook in a hot oven for thirty-five minutes. While this is cooking boil tender a pint of green peas, a pint of potatoes—cut into tiny squares—three carrots, also cut small, and ten small onions. Season each vegetable with pepper, salt, and a small bit of butter.
Lay the beef with the tomatoes upon it on a hot platter, pour over it any gravy remaining in the pan, and arrange neatly about it the other vegetables. Be sure that meat and vegetables are very hot when served.
Braised beef
Put a nice round of beef in a broad-bottomed iron pot with a tablespoonful of butter, and sprinkle a chopped onion over it. Cook the beef on one side until brown, then turn and cook on the other side for the same length of time. Now dash a pint of boiling water over the meat, put a close cover on the pot and let the contents cook slowly, allowing at least fifteen minutes to every pound of beef. When the meat is done, remove from the pot to a platter and keep warm while you strain the gravy left in the pot; return to the fire and thicken it with a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter. Season the gravy with salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, and pour it over the meat.
Rib-ends of beef
These are usually cut off when the roast is rolled, and can be bought cheap.
Fry in beef fat a sliced onion and a chopped sweet pepper—carefully seeded. Take these up with a skimmer and keep hot. Pepper, salt and flour the rib-ends and fry in the same fat until they begin to brown. Put, now, with the fat into a saucepan, strew the fried onion and pepper on top; pour in a cup of weak stock; fit on a close cover, and cook very slowly until the beef is tender.
Strain and skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour; add a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet; arrange the beef-bones in a dish; pour the gravy over them and serve.
Pot-roast of coarse beef
Cut four pounds of coarse lean beef in one piece. Fry half a pound of fat salt pork in a rather shallow pot. Put in the beef, and cook fast on both sides for five minutes. Cover with a chopped onion and a cupful of canned tomatoes, a sliced carrot and a sliced turnip. Now, pour in enough hot water to come half-way to the top of the meat; cover closely and simmer slowly for two hours, turning at the end of the first hour.
Take out the beef; rub with butter, pepper and salt, and set in the oven while you skim and strain the gravy, rubbing the vegetables with it through a colander. Put this back into the pot, thicken with browned flour, boil up once; pour half over the meat and serve the rest in a gravy-boat.
Rolled boiled beef
(An English recipe)
Cut an oblong piece of beef from the flank. It should be two inches thick, twelve inches long and six wide. Lay it on a dish and spread upon it this forcemeat:
A cupful of cracker crumbs, two tablespoonfuls of finely-chopped salt pork, half a teaspoonful of salt, one saltspoonful, each, of thyme, marjoram, and sage, half a saltspoonful of pepper, a few drops of onion juice, or one teaspoonful of chopped onion, and one egg. Moisten with a good stock until soft enough to spread over the meat.
Roll as you would a valise pudding, tie about with pack-thread and sew up in mosquito netting or cheese-cloth. Put on in plenty of boiling water and cook slowly for four hours. Let it lie in the water until the latter is a little more than lukewarm, and put under a heavy weight until next day. Remove the cloth, cut the strings and serve cold with horseradish sauce.
Corned beef is very good prepared in this way. Add vinegar to the water in which it is boiled and omit the pork from the stuffing.
Beef à la mode (No. 1)
Cut two pounds of lean beef from the round into strips. Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with thin strips of bacon, then put in half the meat and strew over this carrots, turnips and onions, sliced very thin. There should be four of these, part of them going over the first layer of beef, the remainder over the second layer of beef. With them go two bay-leaves broken into bits. Cover all with stock, make a paste of flour and water, rolling it out as for pie crust, cover the top of the bake-dish with this, pinching it down about the edges so that no steam may escape. Bake for two hours in a steady oven, remove the paste cover, and send the dish at once to the table.
Beef à la mode (No. 2)
Have a solid piece cut from the round, and tie into shape with stout cords at intervals of an inch apart. Plug the meat perpendicularly with strips of fat salt pork, long enough to project half an inch at top and bottom. Make incisions clear through the beef with a sharp, thin knife, and fill these with forcemeat made of fat pork, minced, onion and bread-crumbs, sharply seasoned. Lay the meat in a braising-pot, cover deep with chopped onion, carrot, turnip, celery, three bay-leaves, a sliced tomato, and sprinkle with mace and paprika. Now pour in a cupful of cold water, cover closely and cook slowly fifteen minutes to the pound.
If you wish to serve hot, clip the threads; rub the gravy through a colander, let it cool a few minutes to throw up the fat; skim and thicken with browned flour, and pour half over the meat, half into a gravy-boat.
It is, however, nicer if left to get cold in the gravy, with a heavy weight on top, until next day. Then remove the cords, and cut in thin, horizontal slices.
An underdone roast can be metamorphosed in this way for a second-day’s dinner.
Braised rolled beefsteak
This is a good way of dealing with a hopelessly tough steak. Lay upon a board and pound from end to end with a mallet. Cover with a forcemeat of minced salt pork, onion and seasoned crumbs, wet with a little gravy; roll up upon the stuffing and tie into shape. Lay in your roaster; pour in a little cold water (or, better still, weak stock), cover and cook slowly for two hours, basting often with gravy from the pan. Undo the strings carefully, after pinning the roll together with skewers, and lay upon a hot dish, covered, while you prepare the gravy. Skim, thicken with browned flour, add a good spoonful of kitchen bouquet, boil up and pour into a boat.
Baked beefsteak à la jardiniére
Still another way of making a tough steak eatable. Pound it on both sides and lay in lemon juice and salad oil for two hours. Transfer then to your roaster, cover with two sliced tomatoes, a sliced carrot, an onion and a turnip, with minced sweet herbs. Add a cupful of cold water, cover closely and cook slowly twenty minutes to the pound.
Cut one large carrot, two large onions, two turnips and four stalks of celery into neat dice and cook them soft, without breaking, in salted water, each in a pan of its own. In another saucepan cook four large tomatoes, peeled and whole.
When the steak is done, keep hot over boiling water, while you rub the vegetables with which it was cooked through the colander or a vegetable press back into the gravy, thickening this with browned flour. Boil one minute, add the juice of a lemon and a glass of sherry, and keep hot in a closed vessel. Dish the meat, lay the vegetable dice about it in little heaps, each kind by itself, leaving the tomatoes whole; pour the rich gravy over all; cover the dish and leave in the open oven for three minutes to let the gravy soak in.
You have now a “French dish,” that will amply repay the additional pains it has cost you.
A family pot-roast of beef
The round will serve for this dish. Fry slices of fat salt pork in an iron pot, and when crisp, remove and throw in a sliced onion. When this is browned, remove and lay the roast in the pot. Cook for ten minutes, turn and cook for five minutes more. Now, add a cupful of water, cover closely and simmer over a slow fire for an hour. Add a sliced carrot, two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice, a bay-leaf and a tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce to the contents of the pot. Turn the beef over and over in this, and if the meat seem dry add a cupful of water, or, better still, stock. Cook covered, very slowly, for two hours more. Transfer the meat to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pot with a brown roux, salt and pepper to taste, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Pour this sauce over the meat and send to the table.
A New England pot-roast
Lay a round of beef in a broad, deep pot. Pour in a cupful of boiling water, add two slices of onion, cover closely and cook gently ten minutes to the pound. Transfer to a dripping-pan, rub with butter, dredge with flour, and brown in a quick oven. Strain and cool the gravy left in the pot, take off the fat, put the gravy into a saucepan, season with pepper, salt and a little kitchen bouquet, and thicken with a heaping tablespoonful of brown roux. Boil up once and serve in a gravy-boat, or pour around the base of the beef.
Savory ragout of beef
Cut a round beefsteak into inch-squares. Fry minced salt pork in a pan until you have enough fat to fry the meat, then remove the bits of pork and lay in the meat, each piece of which must first be rolled in flour. When the meat is brown at the edges, add to the fat two tablespoonfuls of flour that has been lightly browned, stir in a pint of weak stock, or, if you have not that, of boiling water; stir to a brown sauce, and return the meat to it, throwing in, at the same time, a minced onion. Leave the meat at the side of the range where it will cook very slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Now, season to taste with salt, add a bay leaf and a little kitchen bouquet. A little Worcestershire sauce is thought by some to be an improvement. Cover again and cook, still slowly, for over an hour, or until the meat is very tender. Stir in two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and turn out upon a heated platter.
Beef hot pot
Two pounds of beef ribs; one tablespoonful of dripping; two chopped onions and six tiny green peppers, four slices of toast, a little black pepper, chives, vinegar, thyme, raisins, olives, tomatoes to taste, all minced.
Heat the dripping in a saucepan, put into it the ingredients (leave the peppers whole, and mince the chives), cover closely and stew until boiled to rags. Thicken with butter rolled in browned flour. Serve on toast.
Boiled beef tongue (smoked)
Wash the tongue well and soak four hours in tepid water. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water and cook twelve minutes to the pound after the boil begins. Let it get cold in the water; pare and trim neatly, and garnish with small green pickles.
Braised fresh beef’s tongue (No. 1)
Wash the tongue and boil for half an hour. Trim away the root and the tough edges.
Fry a sliced onion in three tablespoonfuls of dripping. Strain out the onion and lay the tongue in the frying-pan. Cook ten minutes, turning twice. Remove to your covered roaster; lay upon the grating and dredge with flour. Pour the fat over it; add a large cupful of boiling water and cook, closely covered, for an hour and a half, basting four times.
Take up and keep hot over boiling water while you skim off the fat, and thicken with browned flour. Season with paprika, onion juice, salt and half a cupful of strained tomato sauce.
Dish the tongue and pour the gravy over it. Send around horseradish sauce with it.
Sauce for braised tongue
Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble. Into a half-pint cup put a couple of teaspoonfuls of vinegar, fill up the cup with boiling water, and turn this on the butter and flour. Stir until thick and smooth. Just before taking from the fire stir in a tablespoonful of grated horseradish. Let it get hot, and serve.
Braised fresh tongue (No. 2)
Clean, and boil for an hour, leaving in the water for fifteen minutes after taking it from the fire. Trim neatly. Skewer the tip and root of the tongue together and lay in your covered roaster upon a layer of sliced onion, carrot, celery, tomatoes, and minced parsley. Cover with the same; add a cupful of the water in which the tongue was boiled, fit on your cover and cook slowly for two hours. Dish the tongue and keep hot. Rub gravy and vegetables through the colander, into a saucepan; thicken with browned flour. Lay the tongue in a bake-pan; pour the gravy over it, and set upon the top grating of an oven to brown. Dish, pour the gravy about the tongue and serve. Eat mushroom sauce with it.
Mushroom sauce for the above
Wash the mushrooms, wipe and peel them, then cut into tiny dice. Stir in a little of the gravy from the tongue; season with salt and paprika; add a lump of butter rolled in browned flour and cook two minutes.
A little lemon juice improves the flavor.
An Italian entrée of beef’s tongue
This is a good way to warm up the remains of a boiled or roast fresh tongue. Slice, cover with oil and lemon-juice, and leave in the marinade for one hour. Then add salt, pepper, some sliced onion, a little parsley and a few mushrooms cut into halves. Place in a frying-pan and cook slowly for about fifteen minutes, moistening with a tablespoonful of sherry and a little lemon juice; just before taking from the fire add a little brown stock, and a little tomato sauce, well-seasoned.
Boiled beef’s tongue
Wash well and cook in salted, boiling water until a steel skewer goes easily into the thickest part. Leave in the water for fifteen minutes, trim, and lay on a hot dish. Pour sauce tartare over it and send more around with it.
Boiled beef’s heart
Wash the heart and soak for half an hour in cold, salted water. Wipe and stuff the ventricles with a forcemeat of bread-crumbs and chopped ham or salt pork, minced fine and well seasoned. Sew up in cheese-cloth fitted to the heart, and bring slowly to a boil in salted water, to which a tablespoon of vinegar has been added. Boil gently two hours, turning the heart several times.
Remove the cloth and dish the heart. Pour a piquante sauce over it.
The heart is made more savory if you will boil it in weak stock instead of water.
Roast beef’s heart
Prepare as directed in last recipe, but roast instead of boiling, laying the heart upon a bed of minced onion and tomatoes, and pouring in a little hot water to make the gravy. Rub this through a colander, thicken with browned flour, season to taste and pour over the heart.
How to corn beef
Mix salt with saltpeter in the proportion of ten parts of the first to one of the second, and with this rub the piece of beef to be corned until the salt lies dry upon the surface. Let it stand in a cold place for twenty-four hours and repeat the process, and the next day put it into pickle. This is made by boiling together for ten minutes a gallon of salt, four ounces of saltpeter, and a pound and a half of brown sugar in five gallons of water. The meat should not be put into the pickle until the latter is perfectly cold. Leave it in the pickle and take it out as needed, looking after it once in a while to see if it is keeping well. If not, take the meat out, rub it well with dry salt, and prepare a fresh and stronger brine.
How to corn a tongue
Put into a saucepan a gallon and a half of water, a half-pound of brown sugar, two and a quarter ounces of salt and a half-ounce of saltpeter. Boil for half an hour, skim and, when cold, pour over the tongue.
It should be ready for use in a week.
Boiled corned beef
Soak for an hour in cold water. Put over the fire in plenty of cold water. Put into the pot with it a peeled carrot and a small onion, and for a gallon of water a tablespoonful of vinegar. Cook slowly, allowing twenty-five minutes to the pound if very salt, or if the meat has lain in the brine for some weeks. Let it lie in the liquor for half an hour after it is done. Lift it then, trim away ragged edges, lay on a hot dish and wash all over with butter in which has been beaten the juice of half a lemon.
Strain a cupful of the liquor; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of flour, boil two minutes and add a great spoonful of minced pickles, or of capers. Some like to use pickled onions for this purpose.
Send around horseradish and mustard with it.
When it leaves the table put a plate with a heavy weight upon it, and leave thus all night.