TO ROAST A FILLET OF BEEF.
Raise the fillet from the inside of the sirloin, or from part of it, with a sharp knife; leave the fat on, trim off the skin, lard it through, or all over, or roast it quite plain; baste it with butter, and send it very hot to table, with tomata sauce, or sauce piquante, or eschalot sauce, in a tureen. It is sometimes served with brown gravy and currant jelly; it should then be garnished with forcemeat-balls, made as for hare. If not very large, an hour and a quarter will roast it well with a brisk fire.
Obs.—The remainder of the joint may be boned, rolled, and roasted, or braised; or made into meat cakes; or served as a miniature round of beef.
1-1/4 hour.
ROAST BEEF STEAK.
If extremely tender, a large slice from the middle of the rump will make an excellent small dish of roast meat, when a joint is not easily to be procured. Let it be smoothly cut, from an inch to an inch and a half thick, flattened on a table, and the inside sprinkled with a little fine salt and cayenne, or common pepper. Make a roll of forcemeat, as No. 1, Chapter [VIII.], adding, at pleasure, a flavouring of minced onion or eschalot, and increasing the quantity of spices; place this on one end of the steak, and roll it up tightly in it; skewer and bind the meat so that the forcemeat cannot escape; fasten a buttered paper over it, and roast it an hour and a half, or more, according to its size. Twenty minutes before it is served, take off the paper and flour the meat, which should be kept well basted with butter all the time it is roasting. Send brown gravy to table with it, and pour a little over the beef.
1-1/2 hour, or more.
TO BROIL BEEF STEAKS.
The steaks should be from half to three quarters of an inch thick, equally sliced, and freshly cut from the middle of a well kept, finely grained, and tender rump of beef. They should be neatly trimmed, and once or twice divided, if very large. The fire, as we have already said in the general directions for broiling (page [175]), must be strong and clear. The bars of the gridiron should be thin, and not very close together. When they are thoroughly heated, without being sufficiently burning to scorch the meat, wipe and rub them with fresh mutton suet; next pepper the steaks slightly, but never season them with salt before they are dressed; lay them on the gridiron, and when done on one side, turn them on the other, being careful to catch, in the dish in which they are to be sent to table, any gravy which may threaten to drain from them when they are moved. Let them be served the instant they are taken from the fire; and have ready at the moment, dish, cover, and plates, as hot as they can be. From eight to ten minutes will be sufficient to broil steaks for the generality of eaters, and more than enough for those who like them but partially done.
Genuine amateurs seldom take prepared sauce or gravy with their steaks, as they consider the natural juices of the meat sufficient. When any accompaniment to them is desired, a small quantity of choice mushroom catsup may be warmed in the dish that is heated to receive them; and which, when the not very refined flavour of a raw eschalot is liked, as it is by some eaters, may previously be rubbed with one, of which the large end has been cut off. A thin slice or two of fresh butter is sometimes laid under the steaks, where it soon melts and mingles with the gravy which flows from them. The appropriate tureen sauces for broiled beef steaks are onion, tomata, oyster, eschalot, hot horseradish, and brown cucumber, or mushroom sauce.