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BEEF (a la Braise)
Hang a rump of beef for five or six days; remove the bone, and lard it freely with small pieces of ham or bacon, rolled in a seasoning composed of an onion minced very fine, a little garlic, thyme, parsley, pepper, and salt. After the ham or bacon has been rolled in the seasoning, add to what is left of the latter a pint of vinegar, a pint of port wine, and a teaspoonful of salad-oil. Steep the beef in this mixture for one night. Before cooking, wrap it in paper, and roast it on a cradle spit, basting it well all the time it is before the fire. Serve with brown gravy thickened, and garnish with horse-radish scraped, and boiled carrots. Some cooks also add a little lemon-juice, and slices of pickled cucumber. Probable cost of beef, 11d. to 1s. per pound.
A larded and marinated roast in the French manner, written for a cook with an open fire and a butcher who hung meat as a matter of course. The marinade and the larding are the interesting parts; the cooking method needs translating.
- Skip the hangingFive or six days of hanging assumes a cold larder in a house without refrigeration, and it is the one step not worth reproducing on a kitchen counter or in a domestic fridge. Buy beef that has already been dry-aged by the butcher, or use fresh beef and go straight to the marinade.
- What cut to ask forA British rump in this period is a large joint from the hindquarter, bone in, and typically much bigger than a modern roasting joint. A boneless top or bottom round roast, or a rump roast of 4-6 lb, gives the same lean, close-grained meat the recipe expects.
- Larding, practically"Lard it freely" means driving strips of fat through the meat, not laying them on top. Without a larding needle, cut deep slits with a thin knife at intervals and push in the seasoned bacon or ham with your fingers or the handle of a spoon. This is the step that keeps a lean round roast from drying out.
- The marinadeA pint each of vinegar and port is an imperial pint, about 2 1/2 US cups each, and it is a sharp mixture. Turn the meat once or twice overnight, then lift it out and pat it thoroughly dry, or it will steam rather than brown.
- "Roast it on a cradle spit"A cradle spit is a basket-shaped spit turned before an open fire, so the paper wrapping shielded the surface from scorching radiant heat. In an oven, wrap in parchment (not newspaper) or simply roast uncovered at 325F on a rack, uncovering for the last 20 minutes to colour the outside.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockThe original gives no time because the cook watched the fire. Roast to an internal 130-135F for medium rare, which will be roughly 15-18 minutes per pound at 325F, and rest the joint 20 minutes before carving. Basting matters far less in a closed oven than it did in front of a fire.
- The gravy"Brown gravy thickened" means gravy thickened with browned flour rather than pan juices alone. Strain a little of the marinade into the pan drippings and reduce it hard before thickening, or the vinegar will dominate.
- YieldA 5 lb roast serves eight to ten, with cold beef left over, which suited a household used to eating a large joint cold over following days.
The name is the puzzle here: a la braise normally means slow cooking in a closed vessel with liquid, yet the recipe sends the joint to a spit. One reading is that in English kitchens the phrase was being used loosely for the treatment rather than the vessel -- a joint larded through with seasoned fat and steeped in wine and vinegar, in imitation of French braised beef, whatever heat was then applied to it; but that is an inference, not something the entry states. The five or six days of hanging belongs to a kitchen without mechanical refrigeration, where a cool larder did the work of ageing meat, and the instruction is given without explanation as though it needed none. The closing price, 11d. to 1s. a pound, is the house style of Cassell's, which addressed a household keeping accounts and wanting to know before it committed what the joint would cost.