Spiced Beef
Wash and wipe six pounds of any inexpensive piece of beef; cover with boiling water; bring to the boiling point, then simmer until meat is tender, adding, the last hour of cooking, one cup each of carrot and onion, a bouquet of sweet herbs tied in a bag, pepper, and one half tablespoon salt. Remove meat and reduce liquid to one and one half cups.
Shred meat, add liquid, and press in bread pan, packing closely. When cold serve in thin slices.
A pressed beef loaf that sets on its own gelatin, closer to what English cooks call potted or spiced beef than to anything spicy. The hinge is the reduction: one and a half cups of concentrated broth is what glues the shredded meat together, so do not shortcut it.
- Cut and timing"Any inexpensive piece" means a collagen-rich cut that gives up gelatin — shin, brisket, chuck or heel of round. Six pounds will need roughly 3 to 4 hours at a bare simmer; the meat should shred under a fork but not fall to threads on its own.
- Never let it boil hardAfter the initial boil, hold the pot at 180-190F. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the broth and leaves the sliced loaf greasy and cloudy rather than clear-set.
- The reduction is the binderStrain the cooking liquid, skim the fat, and boil it down to 1½ cups. If your cut was lean and the reduced liquid does not feel tacky between the fingers, soften a scant tablespoon of powdered gelatin in it before mixing with the meat.
- Bouquet of sweet herbsTypically parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, sometimes with marjoram or savory, tied in a bag or cloth as the recipe directs. Adding whole peppercorns, cloves and allspice to the same bag would go some way to justifying the "spiced" in the title, which the written method otherwise does not.
- SaltHalf a tablespoon for six pounds of meat plus several quarts of water is very little by modern taste. Season the reduced liquid at the end, where you can judge it, rather than the pot at the start.
- Bread pan and pressingAny loaf pan will do; a modern 9x5 is a reasonable stand-in. Pack the hot meat in tightly, cover with foil and a second pan weighted with a few tins; the weight is what makes it slice cleanly instead of crumbling.
- Chilling and keepingCool it quickly, then refrigerate overnight before turning out. It is a fresh cooked meat with no cure or preservative — keep it cold and eat it within three or four days.
- YieldSix pounds of raw beef gives a dense loaf serving 12 to 16 as a cold cut. Slice thin with a long sharp knife; it is meant for sandwiches, a cold supper, or a buffet with mustard and pickles.
Pressed spiced beef belongs to a long English and Irish tradition of preserving cheap, tough cuts by long cooking and potting, and it reached American cookbooks as a thrifty way to turn shin or brisket into something that could be sliced cold for days. Lowney's Cook Book was published in 1907 by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer — the book is best remembered for its chocolate and confectionery chapters, but it was built as a complete household manual, with full sections on meats, fish and vegetables so that it would sit on the kitchen shelf year-round. The recipe seems to reflect a period when a large economical piece of beef might yield stock and dinner and a cold loaf, with nothing wasted; the "spiced" of the title is largely inherited from older English potted-beef recipes, which were far more heavily seasoned with clove, mace and pepper than this restrained version.