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BEEF STEAK (a la Mode)
Take two pounds of rump steak that is not over-fat, lard, and put it into a stewpan with some slices of lemon. Let it cook slowly, and when all the gravy is drawn from it, add a little stock and port wine in equal quantities. Boil slowly until the broth thickens, and when ready to serve, squeeze the juice of a lemon over it. Time, three-quarters of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. per pound. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A compact braise that assumes a cook who already knows how to lard meat and judge a slow fire. The quantities for the liquid are left entirely to judgement, so the notes below fill in what the original takes for granted.
- Larding"Lard" here is a verb: threading strips of firm back fat through the meat with a larding needle, not smearing it with lard. Few home cooks own the needle now; barding the steak with a sheet of fat or thin-cut streaky bacon tied round it gives much the same protection during the slow cook.
- Rump steakIn British usage rump is the cut over the hip, sold as a steak for quick grilling; in the United States the nearest equivalents are top sirloin or a thick-cut rump roast. Buy it in one two-pound piece rather than as separate steaks, or it will shred rather than slice.
- "When all the gravy is drawn from it"This is the hinge. The meat goes into the pan over low heat with no added liquid, so that it sweats out its own juices first. Adding stock at this stage is likely to give a paler, more watery braise than the recipe seems to intend.
- Stock and portNo quantity is given. For two pounds of meat in a close-fitting pan, roughly half a cup of each is enough to come a third of the way up; the dish is a braise, not a stew, and the liquid should reduce to a coating sauce. Use a ruby or tawny port, not a sweet cream style.
- The lemonLemon appears twice, as slices in the pan and as juice at the table, and both matter. The slices are used with peel on, so scrub or use unwaxed fruit; the pith will turn the sauce bitter if the braise runs long, so lift them out once the wine goes in.
- TimingThree-quarters of an hour suits a piece that is genuinely tender to begin with. A two-pound piece in one lump may need considerably longer -- up to an hour and a half to two hours at a bare tremble, covered, until a skewer slides in with no resistance.
- Heat and vesselA "stewpan" is a heavy lidded saucepan on the hob. A cast-iron casserole over the lowest burner does the same job; if the flame will not go low enough, finish it in a 300F oven, which holds the gentle heat the recipe wants without scorching the bottom.
- Cost and yield1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. a pound was the price of good beef, not the cost of the finished dish. It serves three or four as written; slice the meat across the grain and spoon the reduced sauce over.
The name points to boeuf à la mode, the French braise of larded beef cooked slowly in wine that had been a fixture of Parisian cookery since the eighteenth century and is said to have supplied the sign under which certain Parisian eating-houses traded. What Cassell's offers is the domesticated English version: a smaller, quicker cut standing in for the great larded round, port replacing the red wine of the original, and lemon supplying a sharpness of its own. Port in a savoury sauce is a strongly Victorian habit. The recipe's brevity is characteristic of the New Dictionary of Cookery, which was compiled as an alphabetical reference for a household cook already trained in the basics rather than as a book to learn from.