Meats: Hamburg
Now we come to the forequarter, which begins at the five prime ribs for roasting. Close to them lie the five chuck ribs, excellent cuts for stews and small steaks. The neck is generally converted into Hamburg steak, while the under part of the animal, which includes the flank, plate, navel, and brisket, are corned.
Here also is the shoulder clod; no cut can excel it in juiciness and flavor when a pot roast or beef à la mode is desired. For the housewife anxious to have a small income provide the best food possible, there are any number of pieces that make a savory dish, only they must be cooked in the way which best fits them. 1. cut from the top of the round marinated, as I suggested, and broiled gives an excellent steak. A cheaper piece of round, from farther down the leg, may be put through the chopper; when broiled, it is good as Hamburg steak; baked, it makes a savory cannelon. A cut from the rump may be braised and is as appetizing hot as cold. A pound or two of rump is the base for a nourishing stew, while a braised or boiled tongue affords one hot meal and several lunch dishes.
An ox tail is delicious fricasseed or in soup. Pot roasting converts a number of cheap cuts into excellent dishes. Among these are the juicy, lean cross ribs, or a solid piece from the lower part of the round or face of the rump. Two pounds of flank, which costs ten or twelve cents a pound, is very good when cooked à la Milanaise. Roll the meat, sauté it brown, season well, and braise slowly for two hours with enough water to make a good gravy.
A sheep's liver is as highly esteemed in England as calf's liver is here. In American markets it is almost given away. If liver looks cloudy, or a heart and kidney have a streaky, spotted appearance, you may be sure they are diseased and will make dangerous food. When cut from a well-nourished, healthy animal, they are smooth, red, and juicy. A calf's heart is a most appetizing dish larded, stuffed with a well-seasoned dressing, roasted, and served with rich, brown gravy.
There is a knack in picking out a soup bone as well as in knowing how to cook it. It ought to be two thirds meat, one third bone and fat. If one has a large family, the best method to follow in winter when making soup, is to purchase two pieces of shin, one heavy with meat, the other bone and gristle. It must be cooked very slowly. When tender, take the meat, separating it from the bone and gristle, which may be left to cook until all the good is out of it.
The meat makes a good hash or stew and is not to be despised for croquettes. Fifty cents' worth of shin (when there is no waste) yields several nourishing meals in the shape of stew, hash, galantine, and soup.
It will pay a housewife who caters Lo a large family to purchase a set of butcher's tools. They cost several dollars, but within a year she can save the price of them by getting pieces of meat, during the winter at least, big enough to make a number of meals. Of course cold-storage room is a necessity. For instance in the course of two weeks, a quarter of mutton can be utilized in a good-sized household. The first part to be used is the flank, because its keeping qualities are not so good as other parts of the quarter. Cut off the small end of the ribs, leaving the loin chops and the rib quite short. The loin can then be hung in a cold pantry. The flank will make several quarts of fine mutton stock as well as a stew. In this way, one may have at a moderate cost the chops for which a butcher charges fancy prices, besides a num- MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK ber of other cuts, which, although not quite as choice, make excellent dishes when cooked properly. Beef, pork, and veal in large cuts may be purchased during the winter and cut by the housewife to suit her needs. An accommodating butcher will generally be willing to give his customer a lesson on how to divide meat, and with sharp tools any woman can accomplish it.
Roast Beef.
Use, if possible, a covered roaster for cooking any sort of meat. The result is much more savory roast and less shrinkage. Wipe the meat, set it in a dripping pan, skin side down, rub with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour. Have the oven as hot as possible when it is put in, so the outside will sear quickly and prevent the escape of the meat juice. As soon as the flour in the pan is brown, reduce the heat and baste with the fat, which has flowed from the roast.
When the meat is half done, turn it on the other side and dredge with flour. Should there be the slightest appearance of flour in the pan turning black, add a little water and baste every fifteen minutes until done, allowing one hour for each five pounds if the meat is desired rare. An hour and twenty minutes is needed if you wish it well done.
Roast-Beef Gravy.
The bulk of this page is a butcher's tour of the forequarter and a lesson in household economy, but it closes with a working method for roast beef. A few of its instructions rest on assumptions no longer in force — cold pantries, penny-a-pound flank, and the belief that searing seals in juice.
- Oven temperaturesThe book names none. "As hot as possible" would correspond to roughly 450-500F for the first 15-20 minutes on a modern oven, and "reduce the heat" to something like 325-350F for the remainder. On a coal or wood range the heat would in any case have been drifting downward, so some of the reduction may have taken care of itself.
- The timing is the weak pointOne hour per five pounds works out to about 12 minutes a pound, which will give rare only on a thick, compact roast in a hot oven. Cook to internal temperature instead: 125F for rare, 135F for medium-rare, pulling the roast 5F short and letting it rest 20 minutes.
- Searing does not sealThe flour dredge and hot start build crust and colour, which is worth doing, but they do not "prevent the escape of the meat juice." Juice loss is a function of final internal temperature. Treat the high-heat start as browning, not insurance.
- The flour in the panThis is the hinge of the method. Dredged flour browning in beef fat is the base of the gravy that follows; the moment it looks like going black, add water as instructed or the gravy will be bitter. Check it every time you baste.
- Covered roasterA lidded roaster steams as much as it roasts, giving less shrinkage but a softer exterior. If you want crust, roast uncovered on a rack and accept the loss.
- Cuts that have changed namesShoulder clod is sold today as clod, chuck shoulder or arm roast. Cross ribs correspond roughly to the boneless chuck short rib area. "Plate" and "navel" now fall largely under plate short rib and the navel end of the plate, and the boundaries between plate, navel and brisket were drawn differently then than now. Cannelon means a rolled, baked loaf of chopped meat; galantine is boned meat poached in stock and set in its own jelly.
- Home butchery and the cold pantryHanging a loin of mutton in a cold pantry and working through a quarter over two weeks assumed an unheated room at winter temperatures and a household that ate meat daily. Refrigerate at or below 40F, and do not treat the two-week schedule as a guide.
- Judging offal by appearanceThe advice that cloudy liver or streaky kidney signals disease was once a shopper's only defence. It is not a reliable test now and does not need to be; buy inspected offal and use it within a day or two.
- YieldFigure 12 oz of bone-in rib or 8 oz of boneless roast per person, with leftovers, which is what the book is really after in the hash, croquettes and galantine it lists.
This passage comes from the era when American cookbooks were as much household accounting manuals as collections of dishes, and its argument is economic: the forequarter and the leg yield perfectly good eating if each cut is matched to the right method, while the loin and prime ribs command what the author calls fancy prices. Hamburg steak, mentioned here as the usual fate of the neck, is generally traced to the German port of Hamburg by way of nineteenth-century immigrant cooking, and in period usage it meant simply chopped beef, seasoned and cooked as a patty — the ancestor of the hamburger rather than a sandwich itself. The recommendation that a housewife buy butcher's tools and break down a quarter herself reflects a real economy of the 1900s, when urban households increasingly bought from a shop rather than raising and slaughtering their own, and when the "cold-storage room" the author mentions was the limiting factor on how much meat one could take at a time.