Roast Beef.
Have a steady, moderate fire in the stove-grate. Increase the heat when the meat is thoroughly warmed.
Lay the beef, skin side uppermost, in a clean baking-pan, and dash all over it two cups of boiling water in which a teaspoonful of salt has been dissolved. This sears the surface slightly, and keeps in the juices.
Shut the oven door, and do not open again for twenty minutes. Then, with a ladle or iron spoon dip up the salted water and pour it over the top of the meat, wetting every part again and again. Eight or ten ladlefuls should be used in this “basting,” which should be repeated every fifteen minutes for the next hour. Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat in roasting beef.
Do not swing the oven door wide while you baste, but slip your hand (protected by an old glove or a napkin) into the space left by the half-open door, and when you have wet the surface of the roast quickly and well, shut it up again to heat and steam.
A little care in this respect will add much to the flavor and tenderness of the beef.
Should one side of it, or the back, brown more rapidly than the rest, turn the pan in the oven, and should the water dry up to a few spoonfuls, pour in another cupful from the tea-kettle.
About twenty minutes before the time for the roasting is up, draw the pan to the oven-door, and sift flour over the meat from a flour dredger or a small sieve. Shut the door until the flour browns, then baste abundantly, and dredge again.
In five minutes, or when this dredging is brown, rub the top of the meat with a good teaspoonful of butter, dredge quickly and close the door.
If the fire is good, in a few minutes a nice brown froth will encrust the surface of the cooked meat. Lift the pan to the side table, take up the beef by slipping a strong cake-turner or broad knife under it, holding it firmly with a fork, and transfer to a heated platter.
Set in the plate-warmer, or over boiling water, while you make the gravy.