Home › The Principles of Cookery › Beef Steak, Fried
Beef Steak, Fried
If no gridiron is at hand, put some butter or dripping in a frying-pan and let it boil; then lay in a steak of half an inch thick and with steak tongs or the side of a knife move it continually to prevent it from burning. When sufficiently well done on one side, which will be seen by the colour being well spread over the meat, turn it on the other, continuing to move it about with the tongs in a similar manner. If a fork must be used, do not stick it into the juicy part of the meat, but into the fat or edge. When done serve on a hot dish with a little butter (not melted) and some mushroom ketchup, tomato, or other sauce or gravy as preferred. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. per pound.
A plain pan-fried steak from the era before the gridiron gave way to the heavy skillet. The method is sound, but two of its instructions run against current practice and are worth reading carefully.
- Stop moving itThe constant shuffling with tongs was insurance against a thin pan over a coal fire scorching in one spot. In a heavy cast-iron or steel pan on a modern burner, that agitation only prevents a crust from forming. Set the steak down and leave it undisturbed.
- "Let it boil"Applied to butter or dripping, this means heated until it foams and stops spitting, not literally boiling. Butter alone will brown and burn before a steak of this thickness is done; beef dripping, clarified butter or a neutral oil holds up better.
- Half an inch thickThat is thinner than most steaks sold today, and it cooks very fast: a couple of minutes a side over high heat at most. A thicker modern steak of an inch or more needs considerably longer plus resting, and behaves quite differently.
- Colour is not donenessJudging by "the colour being well spread over the meat" tells you the surface has browned, not that the interior has cooked. An instant-read thermometer is more reliable: 125F for rare, 135F medium-rare, 145F medium.
- The fork advice still holdsPiercing the lean muscle releases juice into the pan. Turn with tongs, or spear the fat cap or outer edge as directed. This is one of the few points in the entry that has aged perfectly.
- Mushroom ketchupNot a tomato product but a thin, dark, salty liquid of salted and pressed mushrooms, closer to Worcestershire sauce than to anything in a squeeze bottle. It is still made commercially in Britain; soy sauce with a little vinegar is a rough stand-in.
- "Butter (not melted)"A cold knob laid on the hot steak so it melts at the table, glossing the meat and mixing with its juices. Melting it first thins it and it slides off the plate.
- RestingThe original says nothing about it. Give even a thin steak two or three minutes on a warm dish before serving; the hot plate the recipe calls for is doing part of this work already.
- Cost and yieldOne steak, presumably one serving. The 1s 4d per pound is a period retail price given as a reference point for the household accounts, not a modern guide; the recipe does not say which cut it refers to.
The frying-pan is offered here only "if no gridiron is at hand," reflecting a nineteenth-century preference for broiling over open coals as the English method for steak. The argument against frying, repeated through the cookery writing of the period, was that broiling let the fat drip away while frying stewed the meat in its own grease. The spread of the closed-top kitchen range, which made an open gridiron awkward and a heavy pan easy, is often credited with settling the matter. The instruction to keep the steak in constant motion suits the equipment of the day: thin wrought-iron or tinned pans over an unregulated fire had fierce hot spots, and moving the meat helped even them out. Mushroom ketchup, named here alongside tomato sauce, was a common English bottled seasoning of the period and appears widely in Victorian cookbooks.