Home › The Principles of Cookery › Rump Steak, Stewed
Rump Steak, Stewed
No. 1.--Take a slice of tender rump steak an inch and a half thick. Fry this in hot fat till it is equally and lightly browned. Put it into a saucepan, pour over it as much stock or water as will cover it, and add an onion stuck with six cloves, and a little pepper and salt. Cover the saucepan closely, and let its contents stew as gently as possible for three hours. Take it up, strain the gravy, thicken with flour or roux, and add a spoonful of walnut or mushroom ketchup, if necessary. Serve on a hot dish, and sprinkle over it some pickled cucumber or pickled gherkins finely minced. No. 2.--Take a slice of tender rump steak three-quarters of an inch thick. Fry this in butter or hot fat till it is lightly browned, and pour over it as much good gravy or stock as will barely cover it. Add a tea-spoonful of freshly-made mustard, a little pepper and salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Let the sauce boil up quickly, then put the pan at the side of the fire, and let its contents simmer as gently as possible for one hour or more. Fry in hot fat till lightly browned twelve button mushrooms, twelve small onions, a carrot, a turnip, and two or three sticks of celery, all cut small. Put these into the saucepan, and let all continue simmering till the vegetables are tender. Thicken the gravy with a spoonful of brown thickening; when it is smooth, add a table-spoonful of Worcester sauce, a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, the strained juice of a lemon, and a glassful of port or claret. Serve very hot. Probable cost, rump steak, 1s. 4d. to 1s. 6d. per pound.
Two braises of the same cut, one austere and one loaded. Both depend on a bare simmer rather than a boil, which is the difference between sliceable beef and shredded strings.
- The cutBritish rump steak is cut from the hindquarter above the round and is closer to American top sirloin than to what a US butcher calls rump. A thick sirloin steak, or a piece of top blade or chuck, will braise well; a lean modern round will not.
- The hinge: never let it boil"As gently as possible" and "at the side of the fire" both mean a surface that barely trembles, roughly 180-190F. A rolling boil for three hours squeezes the muscle fibres dry and no amount of gravy will fix it. A low oven with the lid on will usually hold a bare simmer more steadily than a burner, though the recipe itself assumes the fire.
- TimingsThree hours suits the inch-and-a-half slice in No. 1. The three-quarter-inch steak in No. 2 will be tender well inside an hour and a half; check at one hour, since the vegetables go in afterwards and need another twenty to thirty minutes.
- Walnut and mushroom ketchupThin, dark, salty condiments, not tomato ketchup. Mushroom ketchup is still sold; walnut ketchup is scarce. A teaspoon of soy plus a dash of Worcestershire stands in acceptably for either.
- Brown thickening and roux"Brown thickening" is flour cooked in fat until nut-coloured, kept by the cook in a jar. A tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour cooked together to a light brown does the same job for the quantity here. Whisk it into the hot gravy off the heat, then return to a simmer to lose the raw taste.
- Freshly-made mustardMustard powder mixed with cold water ten minutes before use, which is sharper and more volatile than jarred mustard. Prepared English mustard is the closest ready substitute.
- Onion stuck with clovesSix cloves is generous for a single steak and three hours of extraction. Four is plenty unless you want the gravy frankly spiced.
- Yield and servingEach version serves two, or three if you are generous with the vegetables in No. 2. Mashed or boiled potatoes take the gravy; the minced gherkin in No. 1 is not a garnish but the acid that carries the whole dish.
Cassell's gives these recipes because they demonstrate the two ways a Victorian kitchen rescued a second-rate steak: plain stewing with an aromatic onion, and the full made-gravy treatment with mushrooms, root vegetables, port and a battery of bottled sauces. The bottled sauces are the period marker. Worcester sauce, anchovy sauce, and mushroom and walnut ketchups were the standard shelf of a late nineteenth-century larder, industrial products that let a household cook build depth into a gravy without a stockpot going for days. Walnut ketchup in particular is much older than the tomato kind, generally traced to the pickled-walnut liquor of the eighteenth century. The quoted price of 1s. 4d. to 1s. 6d. a pound places rump steak as a respectable but not extravagant purchase for a middle-class table, which is precisely the reader this dictionary was written for.