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Beef, Brisket of, Stewed
INGREDIENTS for dish for 10 persons.-7 lbs. of the brisket of beef, vinegar and salt, 6 carrots, 6 turnips, 6 small onions, 1 blade of pounded mace, 2 whole allspice pounded, thickening of butter and flour, 2 tablespoonfuls of ketchup, stock or water. AVERAGE COST, 4s. 8d.
About an hour before dressing it, rub the meat over with vinegar and salt; put it into a stewpan, with sufficient stock to cover it (when this is not at hand, water BEEF, BROILED. may be substituted for it), and be particular that the stewpan is not much larger than the meat. Skim well, and when it has simmered very gently for ¼ hour, put in the vegetables, and continue simmering till the meat is perfectly tender. Draw out the bones, dish the meat, and garnish either with tufts of cauliflower or braised cabbage cut in quarters. Thicken as much gravy as required, with a little butter and flour; add spices and ketchup in the above proportion, give one boil, pour some of it over the meat, and the remainder send in a tureen. - TIME. Rather more than 3 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. The remainder of the liquor in which the beef was boiled may be served as a soup, or it may be sent to table with the meat in a tureen.
Beef, Broiled, and Mushroom Sauce. (Cold Meat Cookery.) - INGREDIENTS.-2 or 3 dozen small button mushrooms, 1 oz. of butter, salt and cayenne to taste, 1 tablespoonful of mushroom ketchup, mashed potatoes, slices of cold roast beef.
AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the meat, 8d.
Wipe the mushrooms free from grit with a piece of flannel, and salt; put them in a stewpan with the butter, seasoning and ketchup; stir over the fire until the mushrooms are quite done, when pour it in the middle of the mashed potatoes, browned.
Then place round the potatoes slices of cold roast beef, nicely broiled over a clear fire. In making the mushroom sauce the ketchup may be dispensed with, if there is sufficient gravy.
TIME.1 hour.
SEASONABLE from August to October.
Beef, Broiled, and Oyster Sauce. (Cold Meat Cookery.)-INGREDIENTS for small dish.-1 dozen oysters, 3 cloves, 1 blade of mace, 2 oz. of butter, teaspoonful of flour, cayenne and salt to taste, mashed potatoes, a few slices of cold roast beef. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the meat, 1s. 6d.
Put the oysters in a stewpan, with their liquor strained; add the cloves, mace, butter, flour and seasoning, and let them simmer gently for 5 minutes. Have ready in the centre of a dish a round wall of mashed potatoes, browned; into the middle pour the oyster sauce quite hot, and round the potatoes place, in layers, slices of the beef, which should be previously broiled over a nice clear fire.
TIME.-5 minutes.
SEASONABLE from September to April, BEEF BUBBLE-AND-SQUEAK.
Beef Bubble - and - Squeak. (Cold Meat Cookery.) - INGREDIENTS for small dish.-A few thin slices of cold boiled beef; butter, cabbage, 1 sliced onion, pepper and salt to taste. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the meat, 4d.
Fry the slices of beef gently in a little butter, taking care not to dry them up.
Lay them on a flat dish, and cover with fried greens. The greens may be prepared from cabbage sprouts or green savoys.
They should be boiled till tender, well drained, minced, and placed till quite hot in a frying-pan, with butter, a sliced onion, and seasoning of pepper and salt.
When the onion is done it is ready to serve.
TIME.-Altogether, hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Beef Cake. (Cold Meat Cookery.)- INGREDIENTS. The remains of cold roast beef; to each pound of cold meat allow 1/4 lb. of bacon or ham; seasoning to taste of pepper and salt, 1 small bunch of minced savoury herbs, 1 or 2 eggs. AVERAGE COST, with 1 lb. of cold beef, 5d.
Mince the beef very finely (if underdone it will be better), add to it the bacon, which must also be chopped very small, and mix well together. Season, stir in the herbs, and bind with an egg, or 2 should 1 not be sufficient.
Make it into small square cakes, about 1/2 inch thick, fry them in hot dripping, drain them, and serve in a dish with good gravy poured round.
TIME.-10 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Beef Carving:-
A plain braise of brisket in its own broth, with root vegetables added late and the cooking liquid split between a sauce and a soup. Nothing here is difficult; the details that matter are pot size, heat and the fact that 7 lb of brisket takes longer than the stated time suggests.
- The hinge: a snug pot and a bare simmerBeeton is right to insist the stewpan be barely larger than the meat, so the stock covers it without dilution. Keep the liquid at a lazy simmer with only occasional bubbles; a rolling boil squeezes the brisket tight and no amount of extra time will undo it.
- Timing"Rather more than 3 hours" is optimistic for a 7 lb piece; a large brisket may well need 4 to 5 hours before a skewer slides in with no resistance. Cook to tenderness, not to the clock. Note that Beeton adds the vegetables after only the first hour, so they cook for the whole remaining time; if you prefer them intact rather than very soft, add them later than she says.
- The vinegar and salt rubAn hour's rub of vinegar and salt is a light surface seasoning and tenderiser, not a cure. A tablespoon or two of vinegar and a scant tablespoon of salt over the whole joint is the right order of magnitude; the meat is then put straight into the pot without rinsing.
- Mace and allspiceA blade of mace is a single piece of the lacy covering of nutmeg, roughly 1/4 teaspoon once ground. "2 whole allspice pounded" means two whole berries crushed. Both go into the sauce at the end, not the pot, so the flavour stays bright.
- KetchupThe ketchup intended is mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin, dark, salty condiment closer to Worcestershire sauce than to anything tomato-based. Two tablespoons of a bottled mushroom ketchup or of Worcestershire will give the same savoury lift; tomato ketchup will make the gravy sweet.
- Thickening of butter and flourEqual weights, worked to a paste and whisked into the simmering gravy, then given the "one boil" she specifies to cook out the raw flour. For about a pint of gravy allow 3/4 oz each of butter and flour.
- Bones"Draw out the bones" assumes brisket on the bone, which is now much less commonly sold than boneless. A boneless rolled brisket works identically; tie it so it holds shape, and if you want more body in the broth ask for a couple of beef bones to simmer alongside.
- Yield and the second courseWritten for ten, and 7 lb of brisket will genuinely feed that many with the vegetables. The leftover cooking liquor, strained and chilled so the fat can be lifted off, makes a very good clear beef broth the next day.
Brisket is the breast of the animal, heavily worked muscle laced with connective tissue, and it was long reckoned cheap enough that a Victorian household could put 7 lb of it on the table for well under five shillings. Long moist cooking is the only thing that suits it: the collagen has to melt before the meat gives, which is why Beeton's method is essentially a pot-au-feu, meat and roots in a single pot with the broth doing double duty as sauce and as the next day's soup. In this part of the book the stewed brisket sits among a run of entries built on cold roast beef. It is garnished with cauliflower tufts or quartered braised cabbage, and a tureen of gravy is sent in alongside.