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Beef, Round of, Boiled
Few people dress a whole round, and hence this recipe is given for half a round, or, say twelve pounds, from the silver or tongue side of the round. Salt it for eight or ten days, then clean off the salt or brine, skewer it up tight, and tie a piece of wide tape round it to keep it well together. Put it into a saucepan of lukewarm water, boil up, and keep boiling for four minutes, remove the scum carefully as it rises, otherwise it will sink into the beef and give it an unsightly appearance. When the scum is well removed, set the pan by the side of the fire, and let the meat simmer very gently, allowing twenty minutes for each pound of meat. Should any scum stick to the meat, remove it with a brush before serving. Replace the ordinary skewers by silver ones, trim the round, and throw over the meat some of the liquor it was boiled in. Garnish with carrots, parsnips, etc. Time to simmer, about three hours after it boils. Probable cost, about 10d. per pound.
The boiling method here is sound old butchery practice, but the recipe opens with an eight-to-ten day salt cure given without a single measurement, and that is where it fails for a modern kitchen.
- The cure is the problem"Salt it for eight or ten days" specifies no salt weight, no brine strength, no curing salt and no holding temperature. A 12 lb piece of beef held for over a week in an unmeasured, unrefrigerated cure carries a real risk of spoilage organisms, including Clostridium botulinum, establishing in the interior of the joint before salt has penetrated. If you want salt beef, work from a current curing recipe with weighed salt and nitrite and a measured fridge temperature.
- Silver side and tongue sideThe round of beef is the hind leg. The silverside is the outer, leaner cut; "tongue side" is an older term whose sense here is unclear -- it may name the inner cut (topside), or it may be a second name for the silverside itself, and the recipe's phrasing does not settle it. Half a round at twelve pounds is a very large joint, larger than most domestic pans will take.
- The timings contradict each otherTwenty minutes per pound on twelve pounds gives four hours, but the closing note says "about three hours after it boils." The discrepancy is in the original and is not resolved anywhere in the text.
- Why the scum mattersThe instruction to skim in the first four minutes is the hinge of the method. Coagulated protein and salt-drawn impurities rise at the moment of the boil; if left, they settle back onto the joint and dry as grey flecks that no amount of trimming disguises. This part of the technique is still correct.
- Tape and skewersWide cotton tape wrapped round the joint keeps a boned round from splaying in the water; butcher's string tied at intervals does the same work. The silver skewers at the end are purely for presentation at table, replacing the ordinary working skewers used during cooking.
- "By the side of the fire"This means off direct heat, at a bare tremble rather than a boil. On a modern hob it is the lowest setting with the lid ajar; boiling hard through the cooking time squeezes and toughens a lean round.
- Probable costTenpence a pound. Cassell's dates from the later nineteenth century, and the book treats boiled salt beef as everyday substantial food rather than a special dish. Twelve pounds would serve a large household cold for several days.
Boiled salt beef from the round was one of the fixed points of the English table for centuries, and Cassell's treats it as a matter of course rather than an occasion. Before reliable refrigeration, salting was how a household turned a large hind quarter into food that would keep, and the round, being lean and close-grained, took salt well and sliced cleanly when cold. The book's assumption that "few people dress a whole round" is telling: a full round could run to twenty-five pounds or more, a joint for an inn or an institution rather than a family, and even half of it here is presented as a normal domestic undertaking. The dish is often said to survive in the boiled beef of London chophouses and, by way of Jewish and Irish emigration, in the salt beef and corned beef of the delicatessen counter, where the same slow simmer is still used.