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Italian Steak
Take 2 or 3 pounds of steak from the rump or fillet--let it be quite an inch and a half in thickness. Brown it in a stewpan with 2 or 3 ounces of butter, turning it frequently over a quick fire. When brown alike on both sides, remove the steak to a baking-pan, with a tight-fitting lid. Fry 2 medium-sized onions, sliced, a shallot, minced, and a bunch of parsley in the same butter. Throw this over the steak in the pan. Add 2 large wineglassfuls of port, and 2 breakfast-cupfuls of stock, with a root of celery cut into pieces, 2 pickled gherkins, 4 or 5 cloves, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Cover down the lid tight, that no steam may escape, and let it bake in the oven nearly an hour and a half, when put in a turnip and a carrot, whole, and close as before. If the roots are young they will be done in half an hour. Cut them into dice, and lay them over the top of the steak, which should be placed on a hot dish. Send to table with the gravy strained over.
A pot roast in all but name: a thick cut of beef seared, then sealed in a covered pan with port, stock and aromatics until it slices with a spoon. The original gives no oven setting, which is the one thing a modern cook has to supply.
- Oven temperatureFor a covered braise of this length, 325F is right; 300F if your pan seals tightly and you have the time. Anything hotter will boil the liquid hard and squeeze the meat dry before it turns tender.
- The seal is the point"Cover down the lid tight, that no steam may escape" is the hinge of the recipe. If your lid is loose, lay a sheet of foil or parchment over the pan and press the lid down onto it, otherwise the liquid reduces to nothing and the beef roasts rather than braises.
- Wineglassful and breakfast-cupfulA wineglass in this period is about 2 fl oz, so 2 large glasses of port is roughly 1/2 cup. A breakfast cup is 8 to 10 fl oz, so figure 2 cups of stock. Together that gives shallow liquid, not a submerged joint, which is what you want.
- Cut of beef"Rump or fillet" most likely points to a thick piece off the rump rather than modern tenderloin, which would be ruined by two hours of braising. Use a 2 to 3 lb piece of boneless rump, top blade or chuck, at least 1 1/2 inches thick.
- Root of celeryThis may well mean celeriac rather than a single stalk, though "a root of celery" was also used at the time for a whole head of celery. One small celeriac, peeled and cut in chunks, gives an earthy background; two or three ribs of celery work too, but taste thinner.
- Gherkins and portThe two pickled gherkins are seasoning, not garnish, and they go in with the liquid. Their vinegar sharpens the port, which otherwise turns cloying over a long bake. Use a genuine tawny or ruby port rather than cooking wine.
- Timing of the rootsWhole turnip and carrot added for the last half hour is sound for small young roots. Supermarket carrots and turnips are larger and denser; halve or quarter them, or they will still be firm when the beef is done.
- Finishing the gravyStrain the cooking liquid, skim the fat, and reduce it hard on the stove for a few minutes. The recipe assumes a gelatinous homemade stock that thickens on its own; with commercial stock you will need the reduction, or a small beurre manié.
- YieldServes four to six as written. Rest the meat five to ten minutes before slicing across the grain.
Nineteenth-century English and American cookbooks used "Italian" loosely, as a label for anything cooked with a well-flavoured brown sauce, mushrooms, shallots or wine rather than plainly roasted; the term often points to the French professional repertoire, where sauce italienne was a shallot-and-herb brown sauce, more than to Italy itself. Little in this dish is Italian in practice: port and gherkins in particular belong to the British larder. What it really documents is the domestication of restaurant braising: the recipe expects a home cook to own a lidded baking pan, keep good stock on hand, and treat a fortified wine as a routine kitchen ingredient.