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Sirloin Steak with Fried Apples
1 sirloin steak weighing 2 lbs. 3 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco 1 teaspoonful salt 1/2 teaspoonful white pepper 4 tart apples Milk Flour Mix salt and pepper with melted Crisco, then rub mixture into steak and let steak lie in it twenty minutes. Broil it over a clear fire till done and serve surrounded with fried apples. Peel and core and slice apples, then dip in milk, toss in flour, and drop into hot Crisco to brown.
A Crisco-company recipe from the 1910s, and a sound one: the fat-and-seasoning rub is essentially a modern dry brine with oil. Two things need translation, the fat itself and what "broil over a clear fire" meant.
- CriscoHydrogenated vegetable shortening, promoted heavily in these books because the publisher sold it. Any neutral high-smoke-point fat works for the rub and the apples; refined vegetable oil, clarified butter or lard all behave well here.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down past the flame stage, no smoke and no flare-up. On a gas or charcoal grill that means high, direct heat over fully ashed-over coals; under a broiler, preheated 10 minutes with the rack close to the element.
- Steak thickness and donenessThe recipe gives weight only; a 2 lb sirloin is likely an inch or more thick, but that is an inference. The original says only "till done"; work to internal temperature instead, 130-135F for medium rare, and rest it 5-10 minutes before slicing.
- The rubThe twenty-minute wait is part of the instruction, not an afterthought, though the recipe does not say where the steak should sit. Twenty minutes is too short for salt to penetrate far; the oil coat is what helps the surface brown rather than steam.
- White pepperOften chosen to keep dark specks off pale food, which matters little on beef. Black pepper is fine here; white tastes more fermented and musty, with less aroma.
- Tart applesFirm varieties that hold their shape in the pan: Granny Smith, Northern Spy. Softer dessert apples, and purée-type cookers such as Bramley, collapse in hot fat.
- Frying the applesThe milk-then-flour dip is a thin dredge, not a batter, and it goes limp if it sits. Coat in batches and fry immediately at about 350-375F until the slices are brown at the edges, two to three minutes a side.
- YieldServes four generously, with roughly one apple per person as the garnish.
This comes from the era when Procter & Gamble was teaching American cooks what to do with Crisco, introduced in 1911, and the recipe pamphlets and menu calendars that followed promoted the product heavily. The pairing itself is much older than the shortening: fried apples with pork are well attested on English and American tables, the fruit's acidity cutting rich meat in the same role a sauce or pickle plays elsewhere. Sirloin was a common roasting and broiling cut in this period, and "broil over a clear fire" survives from open-hearth and coal-range cookery, where controlling smoke and flame mattered more than controlling temperature. Recipes of this kind are brief and assume a cook who already knows what done looks like.