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Beefsteak Broiled
Cut the steak one-half inch thick; it should then be beaten with a steak beater or pestle. The griddle should be hot and on the coals: place the steak on the griddle, and as soon as seared, turn it; when both sides are seared, place it in a pan, season it with pepper, salt, and butter: repeat this for every piece of steak, and place in the pan, which should be kept closely covered without being on the fire. If your heat is sufficient, from three to five minutes is sufficient, from three to five minutes is sufficient to cook.--Mrs. P.W.
A bare-bones method for broiling steak over a live fire, with the useful trick of holding each finished piece in a covered pan while the next cooks. A few of its terms have shifted meaning.
- "Griddle" means a gridiron"Griddle" here probably means a gridiron -- a griddle set "on the coals" for broiling was more likely a slotted iron grate than a flat plate. The nearest modern equivalent is a grill grate directly over hot charcoal, or a ridged cast-iron pan preheated until it smokes.
- Beating the steakHalf-inch cuts from nineteenth-century beef were tougher and leaner than what you will buy now. Pounding a modern ribeye or strip steak is unnecessary and will wreck the texture; reserve it for round or other lean cuts, and use the flat side of a mallet, not the toothed side.
- Thickness and timingThree to five minutes total is right only for a steak this thin, roughly a minute and a half a side over a genuinely hot fire. A modern inch-and-a-quarter steak needs eight to twelve minutes and a thermometer; 130F at the centre is medium rare.
- Season after, not beforeSeason after searing -- the recipe adds pepper, salt and butter only once the steak leaves the fire, a sequence some period writers justified by saying early salting drew moisture to the surface. Salting well in advance, or immediately before cooking, both work fine on a hot modern grate.
- The covered panThe pan is kept off the fire and closely covered so finished pieces stay warm while the rest cook, their juices mingling with the butter. Do not put the pan back over heat.
- Butter quantityNone is given. About a tablespoon per steak, cut into pieces so it melts into the accumulated juices, matches the intent.
- YieldUnstated, as the cook is expected to broil as many pieces as there are people. Reckon on six to eight ounces of half-inch steak per serving.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of short recipes signed with initials like this one, and its beef cookery still assumes an open hearth or a coal range with a grate. Broiling over coals was often used for steak in American households well before gas broilers were common, and the thin half-inch cut suits the speed of the method: a thick steak over an unregulated fire chars outside before the centre warms. The instruction to sear first and season afterward is tied to the then-popular belief that a quick sear sealed the juices inside the meat, a notion generally traced to the chemist Justus von Liebig and since disproved, though the practice survives because it does build flavour on the surface.