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Rump Steak, Stewed, with Onions
Take a pound of tender rump steak, and dredge pepper and a little salt over it. Butter very thickly a saucepan which has a tightly-fitting lid; or, if preferred, rub it over with good beef dripping. Lay the steak in it, add two large Spanish onions thinly sliced, and an ounce of butter or dripping. Cover the saucepan closely, and put it by the side of the fire to steam as gently as possible for two hours and a half. Take up the steak, lay it upon a dish, put the onions upon it, and serve immediately. It will be found that sufficient moisture has exuded from the onions to make gravy, although no liquor was put into the pan. If tomatoes are used instead of onions, the dripping will not be needed. Time, two hours and a half.
A dry-pan braise: the onions supply all the liquid, so the seal on the pan matters more than anything else. Everything below follows from that.
- The hinge: nothing may escapeWith no added liquor, the only moisture is what the onions give up. Use a heavy pan whose lid actually seats, and if it rattles at all, lay a sheet of foil or parchment under it before covering. A loose lid means scorched onions and no gravy.
- "By the side of the fire"A gentler zone away from the direct heat of a coal range: a bare simmer with no visible bubbling. On a modern hob that is the lowest setting with a heat diffuser under the pan; the recipe gives no oven equivalent, but a very low oven would be steadier and need no watching.
- Rump steakIn British usage this is the cut sold in the US as top sirloin or rump. Buy it in one thick piece about an inch deep rather than as thin frying steaks, which will fall to threads over two and a half hours.
- Two and a half hoursDo not expect a steak in the modern sense. This long, gentle steaming takes the meat well past medium into pot-roast territory, tender and sliceable across the grain. Cut into thin steaks and cooked this way it would simply dry out.
- Spanish onionsThe large mild yellow onions still sold under that name, or any sweet variety. Two large ones is roughly 1.5 lb — a great heap against a pound of meat, but they collapse to a fraction of the volume and their juice is the whole point. Slice them thin so they break down.
- Butter or drippingBeef dripping gives the more characteristic flavour and takes the long heat better than butter, which can catch at the edges even at low temperature. The thick greasing of the pan is doing the work of a non-stick surface.
- The tomato variationTomatoes give up far more liquid than onions, hence no dripping needed. Use about 1.5 lb of ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped; canned whole tomatoes, drained of most of their packing juice, also work.
- Yield and servingA pound of meat serves two generously. There is only a few spoonfuls of concentrated gravy, so keep the accompaniments plain — boiled or mashed potatoes to take it up.
The technique is "stew" in its older sense -- to cook in a closed vessel in its own steam -- and it belongs to the same family of thrift as the hay box and the long-cooked casserole: a closed pan and a slow fire cooking meat in its own moisture, with no stock, no water and almost no fuel. Spanish onions, imported in quantity through the nineteenth century and prized for their size and mildness, suited the job, being juicier and less fierce than the small native sorts.