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BROILED BEEFSTEAK
Many times a small piece of "tenderloin" or "porterhouse" is more wholesome, for an invalid, than broths and teas; and with this may be served a potato, roasted in the ashes, dressed with sweet cream (or a little butter) and salt, or nicely cooked tomatoes. Have the steak from half an inch to an inch thick, broil carefully two or three minutes over hot coals, turning often with a knife and fork, so as not to pierce it. When done, put on a small dish, season slightly with salt and pepper, and a small bit of butter, garnish with the potato, and serve hot.
An invalid-cookery entry that is really a lesson in fast, clean broiling: a thin steak, high heat, minimal seasoning, no piercing.
- "Over hot coals" translates to very high heatThe original assumes a bed of live coals in a range or fireplace, with the meat on a gridiron of some kind held close to them. A cast-iron pan or grill pan preheated until it just smokes, or a broiler element at its highest setting with the rack in the top position, is the nearest equivalent.
- Two or three minutes is per the whole steak, not per sideA half-inch cut turned often over genuinely fierce heat will be rare to medium-rare in about that time. An inch-thick cut wants closer to six to eight minutes total. Judge by feel or thermometer rather than the clock: 130-135F for medium-rare.
- Turn with tongsThe instruction not to pierce the meat is the hinge of the recipe and it still holds. The book says knife and fork; tongs do the same job with less risk of puncturing.
- Cut sizes have changedThe recipe asks only for "a small piece," a good deal less than a modern steakhouse portion. For one person, four to six ounces of filet or a small strip steak is the intent here.
- Roasting a potato in the ashesA medium potato buried in wood embers cooks in roughly 45 minutes to an hour. In an oven, 400F for about an hour gives the same dry, floury interior; the ash method also lends a faint smokiness that foil-wrapping will not.
- "Sweet cream" means unsouredIn this period sweet cream simply distinguishes fresh cream from the soured or cultured cream that was common in a household churning its own butter. Ordinary heavy cream is what is wanted.
- Rest the steak brieflyThe recipe sends it straight to the plate. A minute or two off the heat lets the juices settle, though with a cut this thin the recipe's own instruction to serve it hot matters just as much.
- YieldOne serving, as intended for a single patient.
Sections headed "Food for the Sick" were standard in American household manuals of the 1870s and 1880s, and Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (first published in Ohio in 1877) carried a substantial one. The advice here pushes back gently against the prevailing sickroom orthodoxy of broths, gruels, beef teas and toast water: the writer's argument that a small piece of good steak may be "more wholesome" than liquid nourishment reflects a shift in mid-century medical thinking toward feeding convalescents solid, easily digested animal protein rather than starving them on slops. The insistence on tenderloin or porterhouse also tells you something about the household this book addressed, one that could afford the two most expensive cuts on the carcass for a single invalid's tray. The technique itself, a gridiron over live coals with frequent turning, was the standard American way with a steak until coal and gas ranges with enclosed broilers displaced the open fire.