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Stuffed or Farcied Roast Beef
The round is good for this. Have a top round two or more inches in thickness. Trim off the skin, dust with salt and pepper. Make a stuffing as follows: 1 cupful bread crumbs; 1 egg; salt and pepper; 1 tablespoonful finely chopped salt pork; 1 tablespoonful melted butter; 1 teaspoonful mixed sweet herbs; a few drops of onion juice or kitchen bouquet.
Moisten the crumbs with hot water, add the sweet herbs and other seasoning, pork and butter, mix all together, and add the beaten egg last. Put this on the meat and roll it up in a compact, well-shaped piece. When well secured, cut slashes in the top, taking care not to cut through to the stuffing, lay strips of clear fat in the gashes, dredge with flour as for a roast, and cook in the same manner.
If any of the stuffing is left over, put it in one corner of the pan, and use it in thickening the gravy, adding 1/2 cupful of tomato pulp or 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup.
Serve garnished either with potato balls or mounds of mashed potatoes browned in a hot oven, with creamed onions as an accompaniment.
A rolled and stuffed top round, cooked as a plain roast. The original assumes you know how to "cook in the same manner" as a roast, so the temperatures and times below are the missing part.
- The hinge: this is a lean cutTop round has almost no internal fat, and past 150F the round turns dry and fibrous no matter how much fat you lay on top. But a stuffed roll cannot be carved from a rare centre without the bread-and-egg farce being underdone, and the stuffing in the middle of the roll should reach about 165F. The two aims pull against each other; food-safety guidance favours the stuffing, so treat 135-140F in the beef as a lower limit only if the stuffing itself has been checked and rest 15 minutes.
- Oven temperatureSear at 450F for 15 minutes to set the roll, then drop to 325F for the remainder. Figure roughly 20-25 minutes per pound total for a 3-4 lb rolled piece, but judge by thermometer, not clock.
- Rolling and securingHave the butcher butterfly a top round to an even 1/2 inch sheet, or open a 2 inch piece yourself with a long knife. Tie with butcher's twine at 1 1/2 inch intervals rather than trusting skewers; a slack roll lets the stuffing escape into the pan.
- "Strips of clear fat"Clear fat means firm white pork fatback or beef suet, cut into thin batons and pushed into the shallow gashes. Thick-cut bacon or salt pork works; blanch salt pork a minute first so the roast is not oversalted.
- Kitchen bouquet and onion juiceKitchen Bouquet is a caramel-and-vegetable browning sauce, still sold; a few drops is all that is wanted. Onion juice was got by grating an onion and pressing the pulp -- a teaspoon of grated onion or a pinch of onion powder does the same work.
- Mixed sweet herbsA typical period blend is thyme, marjoram, savory and parsley, sometimes with a little sage, though the mixture varied. A teaspoon of dried poultry seasoning is a close modern equivalent.
- Stuffing moistureMoisten the crumbs only until they clump when squeezed. Dry commercial breadcrumbs drink far more water than the soft home-made crumbs intended here, so add the water by spoonfuls.
- The gravyDeglaze the pan, work in the reserved stuffing as the thickener along with the tomato pulp or catsup, and strain if you want it smooth. About 1 1/2 cups of stock will carry it.
- YieldA 3-4 lb stuffed round serves six to eight, and slices well cold the next day.