Home › Sauces, Salads, Pickles and Condiments › French Stew
French Stew
The French have a way of cooking tough meat, called "Daube," as follows: Season a thick steak with salt and pepper, and fry slowly in a little lard. Turn it often, so that both sides may be cooked alike and equally browned. When well browned, put in a good-sized porcelain-lined kettle, add a small quantity of water, half a sliced onion, some minced parsley and thyme, thicken with a spoonful of flour, cover close and leave it for an hour on the back of the stove where it may simmer slowly; after this has been done add a pound can of tomatoes, then let the "daube" cook about two hours, or until the meat is ready to fall to pieces.
A braise in all but name, printed here under a stray botanical heading that belongs to a neighbouring mushroom entry. The method is sound; the timings assume a wood or coal range with a genuinely cool back corner.
- Ignore the heading"Mushrooms — Genus Agaricus" appears to be a leftover from a neighbouring entry and has nothing to do with the dish. No mushrooms are called for, though a handful of sliced browns added with the onion would not be out of place.
- The cut"A thick steak" here means a cheap braising cut, not a grilling one. Chuck, blade or beef shin cut 1½ to 2 inches thick, about 2 to 2½ lb, is what the recipe is built for. Sirloin or ribeye will be dry and stringy after three hours.
- Porcelain-lined kettleAn enamelled cast-iron Dutch oven is the direct descendant. The lining matters because of the tomatoes — long contact with bare cast iron or aluminium gives the sauce a metallic edge.
- "Back of the stove"The coolest spot on a range top, holding a bare tremble rather than a bubble. On gas or induction that is the lowest setting with the lid on; a low oven, around 275 to 300F, will hold steadier, though the recipe itself gives no oven direction.
- The flourA spoonful of flour stirred into liquid will lump. Sprinkle it over the meat and onion in the hot fat before adding water, or work it into a paste with a little of the fat first.
- Water and tomatoes"A small quantity of water" means enough to come a third of the way up the meat, not to cover it. A pound can of tomatoes is a modern 14 to 16 oz can; crush them by hand as they go in.
- Total timeThree hours at a true simmer will bring chuck to the falling-apart stage. Shin or a thicker piece may want a fourth hour. Judge by a fork sliding in without resistance rather than by the clock.
- Finishing and yieldThe sauce will be thin and a little fatty; skim it and reduce uncovered for ten minutes before serving. Feeds four, with mashed potato, boiled rice or bread to take up the liquid.
Daube is the standing Provençal name for meat braised slowly in liquid, usually in a daubière, a squat earthenware pot with a lipped lid meant to hold coals. The classic version is beef with red wine, orange peel and olives; what this book prints is a thoroughly Americanised descendant, wine replaced by water and a can of tomatoes, lard standing in for olive oil. That canned tomato is the tell — by the end of the nineteenth century tinned tomatoes were cheap and reliable in American kitchens, and cookbook writers reached for them constantly to give body and acidity to long-cooked meat. The framing is honest about the point of the dish: it is a way of making tough, inexpensive beef worth eating, which is what daube has always been in Provence too.