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ROLLS, BEEF (Cold Meat Cookery)
If cold boiled beef is objected to, it may be warmed up as follows. Cut the meat into thin slices of uniform size and shape. Sprinkle over each slice a little pepper and salt, with a pinch of chopped parsley, and a mushroom or an anchovy chopped small. Lay over the seasoning a slice of bacon of the same size as the beef, roll the meat up, and tie it round with thin twine. Fry the rolls in plenty of hot fat, and when they are nicely browned all over, drain, and serve with brown gravy poured over them. Time, fry till brown.
A Victorian way of reviving leftover boiled beef: thin slices rolled around bacon and seasoning, fried, and sauced. The success of it rests entirely on how the beef is cut.
- Cut across the grain, and thinCold boiled beef is already firm; slices cut thick or with the grain will be leathery once fried. Aim for slices about 3mm and no more than a hand's width, chilled first so they hold their shape under the knife.
- Don't cook the beef againThe meat is already fully cooked. The frying is only to brown the bacon and heat the roll through — two or three minutes turning in the pan. Longer and the beef dries out, which is what most people object to in warmed-up boiled beef in the first place.
- The twineFine cotton butcher's twine, one turn round the middle and a knot, is enough. Cocktail sticks work but leave a hole the juices run out of. Remove the twine before serving, not before saucing.
- "Plenty of hot fat"The recipe does not say how deep; a shallow fry in a centimetre or so of fat is enough to brown the rolls all over, as instructed. Dripping is the likeliest household fat of the period, though the book does not specify; clarified butter scorches less readily than whole butter.
- Anchovy or mushroomThe anchovy is a salt-and-savour ingredient, not a fish flavour. The recipe allows one mushroom or one anchovy, chopped small, per slice; scale it back if you find that too salty. With anchovy and bacon both, go very light on the added salt.
- BaconBacon of the period was generally dry-cured, and drier and saltier than the wet-cured rashers now sold, which release water and steam the roll. Use dry-cured streaky and pat it dry, or the rolls will not brown.
- Brown gravyThe recipe says only "brown gravy" and leaves the making of it to the cook. A reduction of good beef stock thickened with a little roux, finished with a spoonful of the pan fat and a splash of the beef's own cooking liquor if you have it, suits the dish.
- YieldReckon three to four rolls per person as a main course with potatoes and a green vegetable; two as a supper dish. A pound of cold beef gives roughly eight to ten rolls.
Cassell's, like many large English household manuals of the period, carried a substantial "Cold Meat Cookery" section, and the opening clause here — "if cold boiled beef is objected to" — tells you why. A joint of boiled beef was a standard family dinner, and what remained was expected to reappear rather than be discarded; the cook's problem was not waste but the household's boredom. Rolling, larding with bacon, and browning was the usual answer, and the same construction turns up under names like beef olives and, for the veal version, the French paupiettes. The addition of a chopped anchovy is a very English touch, generally traced to the popularity of anchovy essence and bottled fish sauces in nineteenth-century kitchens, where they were used much as we now use Worcestershire sauce or soy: a shot of savour rather than a flavour meant to be identified.