Meats: Turn
Have the coals glowing hot, without flame or smoke. Grease a broiler with beef fat, place the steak in it, and hold it over the fire while counting ten slowly. Turn the broiler and hold the other side down for the same length of time. Turn the meat once in ten seconds for about one minute, or until it is well seared; then hold it farther fron the fire, turning occasionally until the surface is brown. Just before taking it from the fire, sprinkle with salt and pepper, turning each side once more to the heat to cook the seasoning. When the steak is cooked, lay it on the platter, and spread both sides with butter.
This is a method for grilling steak over live coals in a hinged wire broiler, and it holds up almost unchanged. The counted intervals are the whole technique.
- The broilerA "broiler" here is a hinged double wire basket with a long handle, held by hand over the fire — not an overhead gas or electric broiler element. A modern hinged grill basket does the same job, or lay the steak straight on a clean grate and use tongs.
- The hinge of the methodSear both sides hard at close range, then move the meat farther from the coals to finish. Turning every ten seconds during the sear sounds fussy but keeps the surface from scorching while the crust builds; frequent turning is now standard practice for thick steaks rather than the heresy it was long considered.
- Coals, not flame"Glowing hot, without flame or smoke" means the fire has burned down to embers: charcoal ashed over and grey, or a settled bed of wood or coal embers. Flaming fuel deposits soot and burns the fat; give the fire time to settle before cooking.
- Salt timingSalting at the very end and giving each side a moment back over the heat is deliberate: it toasts the pepper and cooks the seasoning into the surface rather than leaving it raw on top. Modern practice differs — salting well in advance (an hour or more, refrigerated) is one common approach, salting immediately before searing another.
- Thickness assumedThe book gives no weight or thickness. This timing suits a steak of about an inch to an inch and a half; thinner cuts will be past medium before the sear is finished. Use an instant-read thermometer: 130F for medium rare, 145F for medium.
- Beef fat and butterGreasing the wires with beef fat prevents sticking and adds nothing objectionable; rendered suet, tallow or a neutral high-smoke-point oil all serve. The finishing butter on both sides is not optional garnish — it is what makes the resting juices into a sauce on the platter.
- Rest itNo resting time is mentioned here. Five to ten minutes on the warm platter before cutting makes a visible difference.
Broiling over coals in a hand-held hinged wire basket was a common way to cook a steak in nineteenth-century American kitchens, where the cook worked directly with the coals of the range firebox, and instructions accordingly had to name the fuel and describe the fire's condition. The counted intervals — "while counting ten slowly" — give the cook a way to measure short spans by her own rhythm. The instruction to turn often, dismissed for much of the twentieth century in favour of leaving a steak undisturbed to build grill marks, has been rehabilitated by modern testing for exactly the reason implied here: it browns the surface without overcooking the layer beneath.