BEEF
Roasting. Boiling
The first and the two last joints should be bought large, not under seven pounds, on account of the bone they contain.
In roasting or rather in baking, as is the general practice of small households (either in gas stove or coal), attention should be paid that the oven is not too fierce as it reduces the joint greatly and of course spoils the taste and appearance.
On the other hand, an oven not sufficiently hot spoils the meat by making it hard.
The proper degree of heat is best learned by experience but as a guide it may be said that a joint should begin to splutter and sizzle within fifteen minutes after the oven door is shut.
If the meat does not appear to be cooking satisfactorily at the end of fifteen minutes the baking tin should be stood on the stove over the fire (top off) after putting a little beef dripping into the tin.
While on the fire turn the joint over several times with the fork. At the end of ten to fifteen minutes the meat may be put back into the oven.
The dripping should be preserved as follows:—
After the meat is cooked, place the joint on the dish. Turn the fat out of the baking tin into a basin and dash into it at once a tablespoonful of cold water. This will separate the meat juice from the fat.
In this way you obtain perfectly clear fat and the meat juice under it will be found useful for colouring sauces or improving soups. This applies to all roast meat—beef, veal, and mutton—providing the joint is not stuffed.
As to obtaining gravy for the joint itself, proceed as follows:—
After pouring off the fat into the basin as directed, put half a teacupful of cold water into the baking tin and let it stand on top of the fire till it boils, which will happen almost at once. Turn over the joint in the dish.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cut into pieces about a finger’s length one and a half pounds of rump steak. Have ready in anenamelled 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.
This recipe will be useful when the question arises of keeping a joint over a Sunday. Get your butcher to cut you about four pounds of undercut of beef. Make the marinade as follows: For a pint of best malt vinegar one whole onion, one carrot (onion and carrot to be left whole), one-fourth pint of cold water, two bay leaves, six or seven peppercorns, salt and pepper to taste; put into an enamel saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer gently for half an hour then turn into a deep basin to get cold. When quite cold place the beef in it and turn it over five or six times in the course of the two days it has to wait for cooking.When required for the table take some good dripping—either beef or mutton according to which joint you wish to cook—put it into a baking tin and when quite hot place the meat in it and cook in a nice hot (but not fierce) oven for three-quarters of an hour to one hour. Place the meat on a hot dish, turn out the fat which is no longer of any use. For the gravy put four or five tablespoonfuls of the marinade into the hot baking tin with a teaspoonful of bovril and bring to a boil. Add to the boiling gravy, if possible, two or three teaspoonfuls of cream (not preserved) thickened with a little flour and water mixed smoothly, and serve either poured over the meat or in a sauce boat.
Note.The above will do for loin of mutton.
Take a nice thick steak, beat it lightly with the blade of a firm knife, cut into rounds say about the size of the foot of a large wineglass, allowing two little steaks per person. Sprinkle with a little salt. Have a deep frying pan with some good beef dripping ready melted. Cut some rounds of dry bread a little bigger than the meat. Fry these a crisp brown in the dripping. Drain them on a strainer. Put some more fresh dripping in the pan and fry the little steaks which should be cooked so as to allow the gravy torun red when cut. Place each on the round of toast and serve very hot with some thick brown gravy.
Take about two pounds of lean steak cut very thick. Scrape it free from all fat or other particles with a sharp knife on to a big flat dish. Add pepper and salt to taste, about half a finely sliced and minced onion, a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce. Work all together with the blade of the knife pressing the meat, etc., on the dish. In this way the onion should entirely disappear. Form into little round cakes the size of a small round dinner biscuit only three times as thick. Roll in egg and breadcrumbs and fry lightly from three to seven minutes. Place on a hot dish and serve. A welcome addition is the whole yolk of an egg served on each, and it is quite palatable prepared in this way and served quite raw.