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Tomato Pot Roast
Rub over with flour surface of a 4 pound piece of beef cut from lower round, and season it with salt and pepper. Finely chop 2 onions and fry them until brown in 3 tablespoons melted Crisco. Remove onions, put in meat, and cook it until well browned on all sides. Add can of tomatoes and 2 quarts water, cover, and let simmer for about 2 hours, or until meat is tender. Remove meat; thicken and strain liquor. Cut meat in slices and serve in sauce, or use cold for lunch.
A plain stovetop braise from a Crisco-sponsored menu book; the method is sound, but a few of the quantities and omissions need attention.
- The liquid is excessiveTwo quarts of water plus a can of tomatoes will nearly float a 4 lb roast, giving boiled beef and thin broth. Use enough liquid to come halfway up the meat, roughly 2 to 3 cups, and keep the pot covered.
- The onionsThe recipe removes the fried onions and never says to put them back. Return them with the tomatoes; they are the body of the sauce and get strained out at the end anyway.
- CriscoIntroduced in 1911 and heavily promoted in this book. Any neutral oil, or better, beef drippings, browns the meat just as well.
- Can of tomatoesProbably a No. 2 can, roughly 20 oz. A modern 28 oz can of whole or crushed tomatoes is close enough; the liquor is strained at the end in any case.
- Lower roundPeriod usage for the lower part of the round, generally taken to mean what is now sold as bottom round: lean and tough, and needing the full braise. It slices cleanly when cold, which suits the recipe's suggestion of using it cold for lunch.
- Heat and timingKeep the pot at a bare simmer, barely trembling. Two hours may not be enough for a 4 lb bottom round; test with a fork at 2 hours and expect 2 1/2 to 3. A 325F oven, lid on, is steadier than a burner.
- Thickening the liquorSkim the fat first, then thicken with a flour or cornstarch slurry and strain. Reduce it a little before thickening if the sauce tastes weak, which it will if you used the full 2 quarts.
- YieldServes about 6, or fewer if you want cold slices left for the next day.
- SlicingLet the meat rest 15 minutes out of the pot and cut across the grain; sliced straight from the simmer it shreds.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble, which is why Crisco appears in the frying step rather than butter, lard or beef fat, the fats an American cook of the period would otherwise have reached for; the book was promotional, meant to show that the new hydrogenated shortening could stand in for older fats. The dish itself is a straightforward pot roast, a tough cut braised whole in a covered pot on the stovetop, a technique that suited cheap round and chuck. Canned tomatoes had become cheap and widely available in the United States by the 1890s, and the acid is often said to help soften connective tissue. The suggestion to serve the remainder cold for lunch is characteristic of the period's menu planning, where a single large piece of meat was expected to carry more than one meal.