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To Roast Beef (Sirloin is the nicest)
The sirloin is the nicest for the purpose.
Plunge the beef in boiling water and boil for thirty minutes: then put it in the stove-pan; skim the top of the water in which it has been boiled, and baste the roast, after dredging it with flour; pepper and salt to taste. Baste frequently, and roast till done.--Mrs. P. W.
A short, vague set of directions typical of a book written for cooks who already knew how a joint of beef behaves. The unusual step here is the initial boil, and everything else follows from it.
- The boiling step is the hingePlunging the joint into boiling water for thirty minutes was, by the thinking of the period, meant to seal the outside and shorten the time at the fire. It also draws a good deal of flavour into the water; the recipe has you skim that water and baste with it rather than throw it away, though it gives no reason. If you want the flavour to stay in the meat, sear the roast in a hot pan or in a 450F oven for 20 minutes instead, then drop the heat.
- "Sirloin"In an 1870s American household this meant a large bone-in roast from the loin end of the animal, not the modern boneless sirloin steak, and such joints ran to several pounds. A top sirloin roast, a strip loin roast or a standing rib will all behave the way the recipe expects.
- "Stove-pan"The pan that sat in the oven of a cast-iron cookstove: a shallow, heavy metal roasting pan. Any low-sided roasting pan works, ideally with a rack so the underside is not stewing in liquid.
- No temperature is givenThe book assumes a wood or coal stove judged by hand. Roast at 325 to 350F after the initial browning. Higher and the floured exterior will scorch before the middle is done.
- "Roast till done" in numbersUse a thermometer in the thickest part, away from bone: 125 to 130F for rare, 135F for medium rare, 145F for medium, then rest 15 to 20 minutes. Because the meat starts hot from the boiling water, it will reach temperature considerably faster than a raw joint of the same weight, so begin checking early.
- The flour dredgeFlouring before basting was the standard way to get a browned crust with drippings rather than dry fat. Dredge lightly, and repeat once or twice during roasting if you want the thick brown surface the period liked.
- Basting is optionalThe recipe calls for frequent basting, which suited an oven with dry radiant heat. In a modern closed oven it mostly cools the surface and slows browning. Baste two or three times at most, and save the reserved beef water for gravy.
- YieldFigure about 12 oz of bone-in roast, or 6 to 8 oz boneless, per person; a 7 lb bone-in sirloin serves eight to ten.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named and initialled Virginia housekeepers, is full of instructions like this one: a technique summarised in three clauses, credited to a neighbour, and dependent on knowledge the reader was assumed to have. The parboil-then-roast method belongs to a long line of nineteenth-century thinking, generally traced to the chemist Justus von Liebig, that a quick immersion in boiling water sealed the surface and locked the juices in. That theory has since been abandoned — searing browns and flavours but does not seal — yet the habit persisted in American and British kitchens for decades. Note too that nothing is wasted: the cooking water is skimmed and turned into basting liquid, the flour dredge into a crust, which is the economy of a household that bought beef by the whole joint and cooked over fuel someone had to split.