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Beef, Gravy, to Keep in Store
Put four or five pounds of gravy beef, free from fat, into a stewpan with one pint of water, a carrot sliced, a good-sized onion, a head of celery, a thick slice of cooked ham, and a couple of cloves. Close the lid of the pan and let it stew until the water has nearly dried up, taking care that neither meat nor vegetables get burnt or even stick to the pan. Then add three quarts of boiling water. Remove the pan from the top of the fire, but put it near enough to keep the liquid from boiling too fast. When well boiled and reduced to two quarts, strain through a sieve, and when cold take off the fat. This gravy will serve for game or poultry, and will keep good several days. Probable cost of beef, 8d. per pound.
This is a brown beef stock built on the old two-stage method: first a dry, concentrated sweating that browns the meat and vegetables in their own juices, then a long simmer to draw out the rest. The first stage is the whole point of the recipe.
- The hinge: do not let the pan catchReducing a pint of water under a lid with five pounds of beef until it is "nearly dried up" leaves a glaze of concentrated juices on the bottom. That glaze is the colour and flavour of the finished gravy, but it burns within a minute of drying out. Stay with the pan for the last few minutes and add the boiling water while the fond is still deep brown, not black.
- Gravy beefShin, leg or clod — sinewy cuts rich in connective tissue that dissolves into gelatine. Ask for beef shin, bone-in if you can get it. Lean stewing beef will work but gives a thinner body.
- Quantities and yieldThree quarts of boiling water reduced to two quarts gives roughly two and a quarter litres of finished stock from four to five pounds of beef (about 1.8–2.25 kg). That is a rich ratio by modern standards; expect a concentrated sauce base rather than an everyday broth.
- "Remove the pan from the top of the fire"On a range this meant sliding the pot to a cooler part of the hob. On a modern burner, the equivalent is the lowest setting that keeps a lazy simmer with bubbles breaking every second or two. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds the stock.
- TimingNo time is given because it depends on the pan. Reducing three quarts to two over a bare simmer takes about three to four hours in a wide stewpan, longer in a tall one. Do not lid it during this stage or it will not reduce.
- The slice of cooked hamThis is there for salt and cured depth, not for meat. A thick piece of unsmoked gammon or a piece of prosciutto end does the same job; smoked bacon will push the flavour somewhere the original did not intend.
- Skimming and clearingChilling overnight and lifting the fat cap, as directed, is still the cleanest method — the fat sets hard and comes off in one piece. Strain through a fine sieve or muslin rather than a colander if you want the gravy clear.
- Keeping it"Several days" assumed a cold larder. Refrigerated, use within three days, or freeze in portions; reduced stock this concentrated freezes well and reheats without loss.
Keeping a store gravy on hand was standard practice in Victorian kitchens that sent up game and poultry, since a roast pheasant or a boiled fowl needed a made sauce and there was rarely time to build one from scratch on the day. What Cassell's calls gravy here is close to what French professional kitchens meant by a brown stock, and the technique — sweating meat and aromatics down to a glaze before flooding with water — is the same one behind the modern brown stock. The costing at the end, eightpence a pound, is characteristic of the book: Cassell's gives a "probable cost" for ingredients throughout.