Spiced Beef
Take round of beef and put in a porcelain pot. Over this pour one can of tomatoes, and put one bunch of carrots, and one onion, sliced fine. Put this on the back of the stove at three o'clock for an eight o'clock dinner, and let it cooked slowly all the time. A short time before dinner add a heaping tablespoonful of cloves and one of allspice, ground. Then take a cup of flour and brown it and make into gravy and add this to the rest.
A long, gentle pot roast perfumed with clove and allspice — supper started in the afternoon and left to grow tender on its own.
- “Porcelain pot” = enameled potThis means an enameled cast-iron or ceramic vessel — a Dutch oven is the modern equivalent, ideal for slow braising.
- Timing = about five hours, low and slow“Three o’clock for an eight o’clock dinner” is a five-hour braise. On the stovetop keep it at a bare simmer; in the oven, 300–325°F does it beautifully.
- Go easy on the clovesA heaping tablespoon of ground cloves is very assertive to modern palates. Start with a teaspoon each of clove and allspice and add more to taste.
- Browned-flour gravyToast the flour in a dry pan until tan, then whisk into the pot juices — it thickens the sauce and deepens the color without a raw, pasty taste. You likely won’t need the full cup the recipe calls for; a few tablespoons thickens plenty.
- Canned tomatoes are fineOne 14–15 oz can stands in for the “one can” the recipe calls for; they melt into the braise as it cooks.
Spiced beef has a long pedigree in the British Isles, where beef was rubbed with cloves, allspice, and other “sweet spices” and slowly cooked or cured for Christmas and cold-weather feasts. This American version streamlines the idea into an unfussy pot roast, and its “one can of tomatoes” quietly marks a turning point in the kitchen: by 1900, commercially canned goods had made tomatoes a year-round staple rather than a summer luxury. The result is a homey braise that bridges two worlds — the old ritual of spicing beef and the new convenience of the can.
From page 36 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
