Daube Froide
Take a beef shin, chop in several places to break the bone, keep it cooking in just water enough to prevent burning, till it falls to pieces. Then after taking out the bones, season with one heaping teaspoonful flour rubbed into one tablespoonful butter, red and black pepper, salt and celery seed. Stew it long enough to cook the flour. Pour into a deep dish, cover with a plate, and put weights on it to press it. Eat cold, as souse.--Mrs. C. M. A.
This is a jellied cold beef loaf built entirely on the gelatin from a shin bone, and it works on modern equipment with almost no adjustment. The hinge is liquid: use only enough water to keep the meat from scorching, because the set depends on a concentrated, sticky broth.
- Getting the shinAsk the butcher for beef shin cut crosswise into 2-inch rounds, bone in — sold as osso buco cuts, or as "soup bones with meat." "Chop in several places to break the bone" means exposing the marrow and collagen; a band saw at the counter does what a cleaver did in 1879. Figure 4 to 5 lb for a dish that serves 8 to 10 as a cold cut.
- How much waterBarely cover the bottom of a heavy pot — an inch or two, topped up only if the pot threatens to go dry. A shin submerged in water gives dilute broth that will never set. The finished liquid should be tacky between your fingers when cool.
- Time"Till it falls to pieces" is 4 to 6 hours at a bare simmer on the stove. The meat should shred under a fork and the connective tissue should have gone translucent. (The original gives no oven instruction; if you move it to a low oven, allow a comparable time with the lid on.)
- Red and black pepper"Red pepper" in books of this period usually means cayenne, used sparingly — start with a scant quarter teaspoon for this quantity. Black pepper should be coarse; celery seed is potent, so half a teaspoon is enough.
- The flour and butterA heaping teaspoon of flour rubbed into a tablespoon of butter is a beurre manié, whisked into the hot liquid off the boil, then simmered 3 to 4 minutes so it loses its raw taste. It is there to bind, not to thicken into gravy — the gelatin does the real setting.
- Pressing and chillingPack the meat and its liquid into a loaf pan or terrine, lay a plate or plastic-wrapped board directly on the surface, and weight it with a couple of cans. Chill at least 8 hours, and get it into the refrigerator within two hours of packing rather than letting a warm mass of meat sit out.
- ServingTurn out and slice cold, about 1/2 inch thick, with mustard, pickles, or a sharp vinaigrette. It keeps about 4 days refrigerated.
Daube is the French name for meat braised long and slow in a covered pot, and a daube froide is that braise left to set in its own gelatin and eaten cold in slices — the same principle as a terrine or French boeuf en gelée. French cookery terms had a long presence in Virginia kitchens, and by this date the dish appears simply as ordinary housekeeping. Mrs. C. M. A. anchors it for her readers by comparing it to souse, the Southern pressed jellied loaf usually made from pig's head and feet: same technique, humbler reputation, and both of them ways of turning cheap collagen-heavy cuts into something that could be sliced cold onto a supper table. Recipes like this one belonged to a kitchen with no gelatin packets and no reliable refrigeration, where a shin bone was the setting agent and a cool cellar was the refrigerator.