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Beef, Fillet of, Braised
Take a fillet and roll it together, so as to bring the fat into the centre. Place a few slices of ham and little gravy into a braising or stewpan, on which place the meat; cover it with chopped carrots, celery small onions, a pickled chilli, a gherkin sliced, sweet herbs, mace, a little allspice, and salt. Simmer until the meat is tender. Brown it before the fire, or with a salamander; skim and season the sauce, and serve with vegetables and sauce on the same dish.
A compressed Victorian braise with no quantities and no times, which was normal for a dictionary entry aimed at cooks who already knew the method. The points below fill in what the original assumes.
- What "fillet" means hereIn British usage a fillet of beef is the tenderloin, the long lean undercut. It is very lean and does not take kindly to long moist cooking, which is why the instruction to roll it fat-side in matters: the fat is doing the basting. A modern cook wanting a braise of this shape will get a better result from a rolled and tied piece of top rump or thick flank.
- Roll and tie"Roll it together" means to turn the trimmed fillet in on itself with the fat inward and secure it at intervals with butcher's twine. Without tying, the roll opens in the pan and the braise cooks unevenly.
- The ham and gravy baseThe slices of ham are a bed to keep the meat off the metal and to season the liquor; use unsmoked gammon or a piece of pancetta rather than sweet-cured supermarket ham. "A little gravy" here means brown stock rather than a thickened sauce, and the original asks for only a little: keep the liquid shallow rather than half-covering the meat, or you are boiling rather than braising.
- Braising panA braising pan of the period was a heavy lidded pan with a sunken lid to hold hot coals above the meat. A cast-iron casserole with a close lid does the same work; a 300F oven gives steadier heat than a hob burner.
- TimingThe original says only "simmer until the meat is tender." For a 3 lb rolled joint that is roughly 2 to 2½ hours at a bare simmer. The liquid should tremble, never bubble hard, or the outside shreds before the centre gives.
- SalamanderA salamander was an iron plate on a handle, heated red and held over food to colour it. The modern equivalent is the oven grill at full heat for a few minutes, or a blowtorch. Dry the surface first or it will steam instead of browning.
- SeasoningsMace is the outer coating of the nutmeg, milder and more floral than the seed; a blade or a pinch of ground is plenty. The single pickled chilli and sliced gherkin are there for acidity and a low heat, not to make the dish spicy — keep them at one each.
- Finishing the sauceSkimming is not optional with a fatty roll: let the liquor settle a few minutes off the heat and lift the fat before reducing. Strain or leave the vegetables in as the recipe intends, but taste for salt only after reduction, since the ham has been salting the pot the whole time.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity. Taking the 3 lb joint assumed above, that would serve six to eight with the braised vegetables and sauce spooned over on the same dish, as directed.
Braising as Cassell's presents it is a French method naturalised into the Victorian English kitchen: meat set on a bed of aromatics in a tightly closed pan, cooked slowly in a small amount of liquid, then glazed at the end so it comes to table brown rather than grey. The braisière with its recessed lid for coals is one form of the "braising pan" the entry names, though the recipe allows a plain stewpan as well, and the final colouring before the fire or with a salamander mattered to nineteenth-century cooks, for whom a pale joint looked underdone. The pickled chilli and gherkin are a period touch — sharp bottled pickles were common in the English store cupboard and turn up as seasonings in made dishes, not only as relishes. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, issued in parts in the 1870s and later reissued in enlarged form, was arranged as a reference work, which may account for the telegraphic style: quantities and times are left to a cook assumed to have them already.