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Beef, Stewed, Leg Of
Make a forcemeat of one pound and a quarter of finely-shredded suet, some savoury and marjoram, a few cloves pounded, and a little pepper and salt, mixing all well together. Make several good-sized holes in a part of a leg of beef (about six or seven pounds will do), that has had salt rubbed over it for two or three days previous, and fill them with the forcemeat. Put it into a deep baking-pan with some of the forcemeat over the top, and the pan more than half full of water. Keep the pan closely covered, and let the meat stew for four hours. The forcemeat from the top will serve to garnish, and may be cut into any form for the purpose. That pressed into the meat, if lightly put in, will much improve the flavour. Probable cost, 7d. per pound. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A plain English braise built on one of the cheapest cuts on the carcass, with a suet stuffing pushed into holes cut in the meat. Two things need attention before you start: the salting, and the forcemeat, which as written is almost pure fat.
- The cut"Leg of beef" in British butchery is the hind leg, sold as leg or hind shin; "shin" proper is the foreleg. Either way it is a heavily worked cut, full of connective tissue, and it needs long, wet cooking to become tender. Six to seven pounds is a large piece; ask for it boned and tied, or use two smaller shin pieces.
- Salting it firstRubbing salt over the meat for two or three days is a light dry-cure for flavour and moisture retention. Do it in the refrigerator on a rack over a tray, not at room temperature as a Victorian larder would have allowed. Rinse and pat dry before stuffing, or the finished dish will be too salty once the salted forcemeat is added.
- Fix the forcemeatA pound and a quarter of suet with nothing but herbs and spice has no binder; much of it will simply render out and leave holes in the meat. Victorian forcemeats usually included breadcrumbs and a beaten egg alongside the suet, though the proportions varied from recipe to recipe. Cut the suet to about 6 oz, add 12 oz fresh breadcrumbs, the herbs, and one or two eggs.
- SavouryThe herb, not the adjective — summer savory, a peppery thyme relative common in English kitchens then and sold dried now. Dried thyme with a pinch of oregano is the nearest substitute if you cannot find it.
- Heat and vesselThe recipe gives no oven, which in the period meant either a slow oven or the top of the range. Use a covered roasting pan or Dutch oven at 300F. The point is a bare tremble, never a boil: a rolling liquid squeezes shin meat into strings.
- The liquidThe pan is filled more than half full of water, which makes this a braise rather than a roast, and the liquid becomes a gelatinous broth worth keeping. Stock instead of water improves it considerably; skim the fat before serving.
- TimingFour hours is a fair estimate for a piece this size, but go by feel — shin is done when a fork twists free with no resistance, which can take five hours. Undercooked shin is tough and chewy rather than merely rare.
- The garnishThe forcemeat laid over the top sets into a firm layer that can be lifted off and cut into shapes. It will be pale and steamed-looking; browning it briefly under a grill improves both colour and taste.
- Yield and costSeven or eight portions, as stated. The "7d. per pound" is a period price note, not an instruction — leg was among the cheapest beef sold, which is the whole reason for the recipe.
Cassell's belongs to the great wave of comprehensive Victorian household dictionaries, and its beef entries are organised by cut and price as much as by method — a book written for households that had to know what to do with shin. Stuffing forcemeat into holes cut in a large piece of beef and then stewing it slowly in a covered pot is the English domestic descendant of boeuf à la mode and the French daube, techniques generally traced to the practice of larding lean, sinewy cuts with fat and seasoning so that they baste themselves from within. The preliminary salting is the same instinct that produced spiced beef and corned beef: a few days of salt firmed the meat, drew out moisture and bought a little keeping time in a house without refrigeration. The result is closer to a boiled, stuffed joint than to a modern braise.