And see whether, raw or roasted, I make the
better meat.”
Chipped Beef.
One of the best things produced in America, besides buyers of spurious art works and donors of Free Libraries, is Chipped Beef. You can buy it in tins and treat it thus. Put three tablespoons of butter in the dish. When just melted add a tablespoon of flour; stir until smooth. Then add the Chipped Beef, which must have been previously soaked in cold water for ten minutes; let it simmer for eight minutes, then stir in the beaten-up yolks of two eggs, and serve very hot. Every day is Thanksgiving Day when one eats Chipped Beef, and it is a selfish dish to cook, because one wants to eat it all oneself; and the worst of eating is that it takes away one’s appetite—although there is a proverb to the contrary.
But it is always comfortable to be content (or nearly so) on good plain food, instead of on the misguided concoctions of addle-egged and-pated foreigners, which leave one in the position of the unfortunate vultures in the famous Oxford prize poem, who
“Satiated with one horrid meal,
No second rapture for another feel.”
Zrazy.
This is how to make Polish Zrazy in a Chafing Dish. Buy the whole undercut (fillet) of a small sirloin. Cut it into inch slices. Brown two sliced onions in the Dish in a large walnut of butter. Add the meat, a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and half a dozen cloves. Cover up, and let it hot up to boiling. Do not uncover, as the great thing is to let it steam in its own fumet. Shake the pan now and again, so that it shall amalgamate well. After once boiling up, let it simmer for fifteen minutes, add a good squeeze of lemon, a glass of claret, and serve with the accompaniment of potato salad.
“This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men,” says Izaak Walton of a like concoction.