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Gravy, Beef, Clear
Cut two pounds of the shin of beef into small pieces, and fry these over a clear fire until lightly browned, but take care they do not burn. Pour over them a quart of boiling water, skim thoroughly, and simmer for half an hour. Then add a salt-spoonful of salt, a large onion, sliced and fried, a bunch of parsley and thyme, two cloves, and six or eight peppercorns. Simmer gently for two hours. Strain, and put it aside for use. Remove the fat from the top before heating it. Sufficient for a pint and a half of gravy. Probable cost, 1s.
A basic brown beef stock under an older name: Victorian cookery books used "gravy" for the concentrated meat liquor kept on hand to enrich sauces and made-dishes, not for a thickened pan sauce.
- The hinge: brown, don't burnThe colour and depth come entirely from frying the meat, since there is no roux, tomato or caramel here. Take the beef to a deep even brown in a heavy pan over moderate-high heat, in batches if need be; a single scorched piece turns the whole quart bitter.
- Shin of beefBeef shin (foreshank) is still sold as shank, osso buco cuts, or gravy beef. Its collagen is the point — it gives body to the finished liquid — so no leaner cut will substitute well. Ask for it bone-in and add the bone to the pot.
- Quantities and yieldTwo pounds of meat to a quart of water yields about a pint and a half — an imperial pint and a half is roughly 850 ml, or about 3½ US cups — after two and a half hours of gentle simmering in total. A salt-spoonful is about a quarter teaspoon; season lightly at this stage, since the stock will be reduced further in whatever it flavours.
- "A clear fire"On a range this means a bed of coals burning without smoke — steady, hot, no flare. Medium-high on a gas or induction hob is the equivalent.
- Simmer, don't boilA boil emulsifies the fat back into the liquid and clouds it, which defeats the word "clear" in the title. Keep it at a bare tremble, uncovered or barely covered, and skim as scum rises in the first twenty minutes.
- The aromaticsOne large onion sliced and fried until well coloured, a small bunch of parsley and thyme tied together, two whole cloves and six to eight peppercorns. The aromatics go in only after the first half hour, which has the practical effect of keeping the initial skimming clear of leaves and onion shreds.
- Straining and clarityStrain through a fine sieve lined with damp muslin and do not press the solids, which pushes fine particles through. Chilling overnight sets the fat into a disc you can lift off whole, which is easier than skimming warm.
- Keeping itCold storage was limited in most Victorian kitchens, so stock of this kind was typically made in small batches and used up quickly. Refrigerated it holds three or four days; it freezes well, and reducing it by half first makes a concentrate that thaws into usable gravy quickly.
- Probable costOne shilling was a real sum for a household of the period, and cookery books of the time commonly suggested using the boiled-out meat again in a rissole or potted paste, its flavour largely spent.
Cassell's is arranged alphabetically as a dictionary, and this entry belongs to the basic preparations a large Victorian kitchen depended on: a pot of clear beef gravy ready to be drawn on for sauces, hashes, ragouts and the moistening of reheated meat. The word "gravy" had a broader sense then than now, meaning the essential juice or liquor of meat however extracted, and only gradually narrowed to the thickened brown sauce served at table. The technique — searing the meat first, drawing it with boiling rather than cold water, skimming, then adding aromatics — runs parallel to the French jus and consommé tradition that shaped English professional cookery through the nineteenth century, and is close to what a modern brown stock recipe still asks for. That the book quotes a probable cost is characteristic: Cassell's was aimed at middle-class households working to a budget, where knowing that a pint and a half of gravy cost a shilling mattered as much as knowing how to make it.