Should the gravy appear not dark enough, the meat juice separated as above from the fat of other joints may be added.
N.B. Never flour the joint before putting it in the oven. The practice has nothing to recommend it and it would make it impossible to obtain dripping or preserve the very useful meat juice.
77. Salt Beef and Carrots
Soak over night in cold water a piece of salt beef, say about four pounds. Put it into a saucepan three parts full of boiling water. Time for cooking: one and a half hours. When the meat has been boiling for half an hour add four carrots cut in four lengthwise. Make about six suet dumplings in the same way as suet crust for pudding and put in the saucepan twenty minutes before the meat is ready. Care must be taken that no salt is added to anything. Serve with the dumplings and carrots round the dish.
78. Stuffed Steak with Thick Sauce
Take two pounds of rump steak, free it from sinews; make about four large cuts in it without cutting it right through, with a sharp knife. Lay the stuffing (sage and onion according to rec: [40]) on the steak, cover with a piece of flare, or if not available a piece of buttered paper tied round with string, and bake for one hour. Lay the meat on a dish and remove the string and paper. Put a pinch of pepper and salt into the baking tin and about a teacupful of water. Place over the top of the stove until it boils, stir into it a tablespoonful and a half of carefully mixed flour, bring it to the boil again and carefully strain it through a gravy strainer over the meat. Serve with baked or boiled potatoes.
79. Rump Steak with Kidney and Mushroom Sauce
Melt over a clear fire an ounce of butter in an enamelled frying pan, then put in one and a half pounds of rump steak to fry briskly for five minutes, turning over once. Put the stove top on then and cook the steak for fifteen to twenty minutes more. Prepare half an ox kidney cut into dice, half a Spanish onion chopped very fine, and six or seven mushrooms (which have been previously placed in salted water for a short time to remove all grit). After dishing the steak put the kidney in the pan first, then the onion, then the mushrooms and fry very briskly but lightly for ten to fifteen minutes. Then add half a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce, six tablespoonfuls of water, and half a tablespoonful of flour mixed very smooth and thin with a little water. Bring to a boil and turn over the steak before serving.
80. Stewed Steak
Cut into pieces about a finger’s length one and a half pounds of rump steak. Have ready in an enamelled frying pan about an ounce of fresh butter made hot, or dripping. Lay the steak in this and fry briskly on a clear fire for ten minutes. Remove the meat and put it into an earthenware saucepan with a slice. Fry in the same butter or dripping one large Spanish onion. Cut two large or six small carrots into pieces; add this and the onion to the steak with a piece of loaf sugar, pepper and salt, and half a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce or mushroom catsup. Cover with cold water and stew gently for two hours. Thicken with a little carefully mixed flour and water. Best served in the earthenware saucepan wrapped in a napkin.