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Ragout of Beef
Cut two pounds of round steak into one-inch cubes. Put two tablespoons of suet into saucepan and when hot add the meat, browning on all sides. Into the fat blend two tablespoons of flour and then add one pint of water in which has been dissolved one teaspoon of Larkin Extract of Beef. Add one teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt and onefourth teaspoon of Larkin White Pepper and simmer for one and one-half hours
A plain flour-thickened beef braise, written to sell the house-brand pantry goods that came with it. Nothing here is difficult; the points worth attention are the fat, the beef extract, and the fact that round needs longer than the recipe allows.
- Larkin Extract of BeefA concentrated meat paste of the Bovril type. One teaspoon dissolved in a pint of water is roughly one beef bouillon cube or a teaspoon of commercial beef base per two cups; unsalted beef stock works better still, in which case cut the added salt back and season at the end.
- SuetTwo tablespoons of chopped or shredded beef kidney fat, rendered in the pan. Beef tallow, lard or a neutral oil all substitute directly; butter alone will scorch at the heat needed for browning.
- Brown in batchesTwo pounds of cubed round crowded into one saucepan will steam rather than brown, and the browning is the only source of flavor besides the extract. Work in two or three single layers, removing each as it colors.
- The timing is short for roundRound is lean and comparatively sinewy. An hour and a half at a bare simmer is likely to leave it chewy; two to two and a half hours, covered, will usually get it to the point where it yields to a fork. Add water if the level drops below the meat.
- Sauce consistencyTwo tablespoons of flour to a pint of liquid gives a light gravy. Blend the flour into the hot fat and let it cook a minute before the liquid goes in, and add the liquid gradually to avoid lumps.
- What it lacksThere is no onion, carrot, bay or wine in the original. An onion browned with the meat and a bay leaf in the pot cost nothing and are entirely in period for a ragout.
- YieldServes four over noodles, boiled potatoes or rice.
"Ragout" comes from the French ragoûter, to revive the appetite, and by the nineteenth century English and American cookbooks used it loosely for any small-cut meat stewed in its own thickened gravy. The branded ingredients are the giveaway to this book's purpose: the Larkin Company of Buffalo built a mail-order business on soap and household goods sold through neighborhood "clubs," and it issued cookbooks as premiums in which its own extract of beef, salt and pepper were written directly into the instructions. Extract of beef was an industrial product of the second half of the nineteenth century, closely tied to the South American meat trade and sold as both a kitchen shortcut and an invalid tonic; its appearance here in place of homemade stock is one sign of the home kitchen beginning to buy in what it had once made itself.