To roast, have a bright fire. Hang the joint about eighteen inches from it at first, put a little clarified dripping into the dripping-pan, baste the meat with it when first prepared to cook, and every fifteen minutes afterward. Twenty minutes before the beef is done, sprinkle with pepper and salt, dredge with flour, baste with a little butter or dripping. Keep the fire bright, and turn the meat before it. It should be well browned and frothed. The cut, a rolled rib roast, with mashed potatoes.
Yorkshire Pudding.
Ingredients: Six large table-spoonfuls of flour, three eggs (well beaten), one salt-spoonful of salt, enough milk to make it of the consistency of soft custard (about one and a half pints).
Add enough milk to the flour and salt to make a smooth, stiff batter; add the eggs, and enough more milk to make it of the proper consistency. Beat all well together, pour it into a shallow pan (buttered); bake three-quarters of an hour.
Some empty the dripping-pan three-quarters of an hour before baked beef is done, and put the pudding into the empty pan, the beef on a three-cornered stand over it, that its juice may drop on the pudding. If beef is roasted, the pudding may be first baked in the oven, then placed under the beef for fifteen or twenty minutes, to catch any stray drops. It is as often served, though, baked in the oven in the ordinary way.
It is cut into squares and served on a hot plate, to be eaten with roast beef. It is a favorite English dish.
Beef à la Mode.
Six or seven pounds from a round of beef are generally selected; however, there is a cut from the shoulder which answers very well for an à-la-mode beef. If the round is used, extract the bone. Make several deep incisions into the meat with a thin sharp knife; press into most of them lardoons of pork about half an inch square, and two or three inches long; in the other cuts, and especially the one from whence the bone was extracted, stuff almost any kind of force-meat, the simplest being as follows: Mix some soaked bread with a little chopped beef-suet, onion, any herbs, such as parsley, thyme, or summer savory; a little egg, Cayenne pepper, salt, and cloves. Press the beef into shape, round or oval, and tie it securely.
Put trimmings of pork into the bottom of a large saucepan or iron pot, and when hot put over the meat; brown it all over by turning all sides to the bottom of the pot, which should now be uncovered. This will take about half an hour. Next sprinkle over a heaping table-spoonful of flour, and brown that also. Put a small plate under the beef, to prevent burning, and fill the pot with enough boiling water to half cover the meat; throw over a saucerful of sliced onions, carrots, some turnips, if you like, and some parsley. There are iron pots, with tight iron covers, which are made expressly for this kind of cooking; but if you have none of this description, you will now have to cover the one used with enough covers, towels, etc., to make it tight as possible, so that the meat may be cooked in the steam. Let it cook for four or five hours, never allowing the water to stop boiling. Watch it, that it may not get too low, and replenish it with boiling water. When the meat is done, put it on a hot platter; strain the gravy, skim off every particle of fat, add two or three table-spoonfuls of port or sherry wine, also pepper and salt, if necessary, and pour this gravy and selected pieces of the vegetables over the meat.
Baked onions ([see page 201]), placed around the beef as a garnish, complete the dish for a course at dinner.