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To Roast Beef (Lay the meat on some sticks)
Lay the meat on some sticks in a dripping-pan or other vessel, so that it will not touch the water which it is necessary to have in the bottom. Season with salt and pepper, and put in the oven three or four hours before it is wanted for the table. Baste it often with the water in the bottom of the pan, renewing it as often as it gets low. This makes sweet, juicy roast beef. The great secret of it is, not to have the meat touch the water in the bottom of the pan, and to baste it often. Tough, unpromising pieces of beef are best cooked by steaming them an hour and a half or so and then putting them in the oven and roasting as much longer.
Crackers, first browned and then pounded, should always be kept to sift over roast meats: and curled parsley to garnish with. Grated horseradish is also excellent with the roast.--Mrs. S. T.
This is a wet-roast method: the sticks are an improvised rack, and the water underneath turns the oven into a mild steam chamber. It suits large, lean, grass-fed joints of the kind this book assumes, and needs a few adjustments for a modern range.
- The hinge: meat must sit clear of the waterThe whole method depends on the joint being lifted above the liquid so it roasts in moist heat rather than stewing in the bottom of the pan. Any wire rack, or a bed of thick-cut onion and carrot, does what the sticks did.
- No oven temperature is givenA joint held three to four hours implies a steady moderate oven, perhaps in the region of 325F. At that heat a 5-6 lb rib or rump will be well past rare inside three hours, so this instruction probably assumes beef cooked through rather than rare.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockPull the joint at 125-130F internal for rare, 135F for medium rare, and rest it 20 minutes. The 3-4 hour instruction is for a large piece and a cooler, less predictable oven than yours.
- Basting with water will not brown the meatWater on the surface cools it and delays crust formation. If you want colour, blast the joint at 450F for the first 20 minutes, or finish it at high heat, and baste with the pan fat rather than the water.
- "Tough, unpromising pieces"Steaming an hour and a half then roasting is a pot-roast in two stages, and it is the right approach for chuck, brisket or a shoulder clod. Collagen needs to reach around 190F and stay there; those cuts will not be pleasant at rare.
- Browned and pounded crackersPlain soda or water crackers, dried in the oven until tan and crushed fine — the period equivalent of toasted dry breadcrumbs. Sifted over the sliced meat they absorb juices and add a little crunch; panko toasted dry is the closest modern stand-in.
- ServingAllow about 12 oz of bone-in roast or 8 oz boneless per person. The grated horseradish is best stirred into a little cream or sour cream if you are using the jarred sort, which is already sharpened with vinegar.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives, which is why this entry ends with the initials of its donor rather than a byline. The wet-pan method can be read as a transitional one: open-hearth cooks had spit-roasted beef in front of the fire, basting constantly, and when cast-iron ranges with closed ovens came into use, that dry radiant heat was gone. Water in the dripping-pan was one way to keep an enclosed oven from drying out a large joint before it was cooked through -- hence the contributor's insistence that the secret is frequent basting. Crackers were a staple pantry item in this period, used as a thickener, a coating and a crumb.