Spanish Stew
This stew will need 2 pounds of the end ribs of beef or a piece from the brisket or navel, cutting it in a half dozen strips. Put in a kettle with 2 quarts of warm water, heat rapidly, then simmer for two hours. Add I can of tomatoes, 3 large onions cut fine, 6 cloves, ½ teaspoonful of celery seed, ½ of a bay leaf, ¼ of the yellow rind of an orange, I or 2 red peppers (seeded) and salt to taste. Simmer for another hour, then take out the meat and keep hot. Strain the gravy through a coarse sieve into a clean pan, thicken with flour mixed to a paste with cold water and boil up once before pouring over the meat.
Beef, Savory Sauce Cut cold boiled or braised beef in thin neat slices. Heat together 1 tablespoonful of butter, 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup and 1 cupful of slightly thickened gravy, stock or soup, using any kind which goes well in flavor with the meat.
When smoking hot add seasoning if needed, then lay in the slices until heated through. Serve at once with rolls or buttered bread.
A long-simmered braise built from cheap, well-worked cuts and a spice list that leans on orange peel and dried chile rather than paprika. The method is sound; only the units and a couple of ingredient names need translating.
- The cutEnd ribs, brisket and navel (the belly end of the plate) are all collagen-heavy cuts that need the full three hours. Short ribs or a chuck roast cut into thick strips behave the same way; lean stew meat will go dry and stringy over that time.
- Water quantityTwo quarts to two pounds of meat is generous, and this is as much a broth-stretching dish as a stew. Some reduction over three hours is inevitable, but the recipe does not say whether the kettle is covered, so how much liquid you finish with will vary: cover partially if you want more broth, leave it open if you want a concentrated gravy.
- Heat rapidly, then simmerThe instruction matters. Bringing the pot up fast and then holding it at a bare shiver — surface barely trembling, around 180-190F — is what keeps the meat from tightening. A hard boil for three hours will give you shredded, dry beef in cloudy liquid.
- The canned tomatoes'A can of tomatoes' was not a fixed size in this period, and commercial cans were often larger than today's 14.5 oz standard, closer to a quart. Anything from 14.5 to 28 oz works; the larger can gives a distinctly tomato-forward stew.
- Orange rindThe fraction has not survived legibly in this printing. A quarter of the zest of one orange — yellow rind only, no white pith — suits the quantity of meat here. Pith turns the gravy bitter over a long simmer.
- Red peppersMost likely whole dried red pepper pods, seeded, rather than fresh bell peppers, though period usage can cover either. Two dried cayenne or árbol chiles give noticeable heat in two quarts; one is plenty for most tables. The sieve will catch them when you strain, but you can lift them out earlier if you want to control the sharpness.
- Straining and thickeningThe recipe strains the gravy through a coarse sieve, which lets some softened onion and tomato pulp carry through and gives the sauce body before the flour goes in. Mix the flour into cold water to a smooth cream — roughly 2 tablespoons flour to ¼ cup water will give a light gravy — and boil up once to cook out the raw taste.
- YieldTwo pounds of bone-in ribs feeds four; the same weight of boneless brisket will stretch to six with rice, noodles or bread to catch the gravy.
"Spanish" in American cookbooks of this period rarely meant Spain. It was shorthand for anything built on tomatoes, onions and red pepper, the same convention that produced Spanish rice and Spanish omelet, and it generally signalled a dish with more seasoning than the plain boiled-and-buttered norm. What sets this one apart is the orange peel and cloves; citrus zest with long-cooked beef is familiar from Iberian and Latin American braising as well as French, though nothing in the recipe ties it to a particular tradition. The choice of cuts is the real point: end ribs, brisket and navel were among the cheapest beef on the butcher's block. Stretching two pounds of it across two quarts of liquid, then thickening the strained broth into gravy, is economy cooking doing two jobs at once.