School and Home Cooking

by Carlotta C. Greer

BEEF STEW

2 pounds beef 1/4 cupful flour 2 teaspoonfuls salt 1/8 teaspoonful pepper 1 onion cut into slices 1 quart hot water 2 carrots, cut in dice 1 turnip, cut in dice 4 potatoes, cut in dice 1 tablespoonful kitchen bouquet

Remove the fat from the meat to be stewed; cut the meat into 1-inch pieces. Dredge the meat with the flour; add the salt and pepper. Try out the fat in a frying pan; remove the scraps. Brown the onion and then the meat in the hot fat. Add the hot water and pieces of bone and cook in the frying pan for 2 hours at a low temperature; or turn into a double boiler and cook for the same length of time. Add vegetables, except potatoes, and cook for I hour longer; add the potatoes 1/2 hour before the stew is done. If desired, more flour,—mixed with enough cold water to pour easily,—may be added when the potatoes are added. Remove the bone, add kitchen bouquet, and serve.

THICKENING THE SAUCE OF MEAT COOKED IN WATER.—When meat is dipped in flour, then browned in fat, and finally cooked in water, the flour thickens the water and forms a sauce around the meat. Usually, however, more flour needs to be added to the sauce to make it sufficiently thick. Sometimes directions for adding a flour-and-water paste to the hot meat stock are given, but unless the flour-and-water paste is cooked for some time (boiled for 5 minutes at least) the sauce does not have a pleasing flavor. This is because the starch is insufficiently cooked or the flour is not browned. It has been found much more satisfactory to sprinkle a little extra flour into the hot fat while browning the floured meat. Thus the sauce is made smooth, and the starch cooked thoroughly by the time the sauce is ready to serve.

QUESTIONS

If round steak has been cut too thick for rolling, what is a practical way of making it of one half inch thickness?

For what purpose is rolled steak browned in fat before cooking in water?

Explain why the rolled steak is cooked in water at simmering rather than at boiling temperature.

What is the purpose of dredging these meats in flour?

Why are not the vegetables added to the Beef Stew when the boiling water is added? Why are not the potatoes added with the other vegetables?