Beef Collops
INGREDIENTS for Beef Tongue. Passing the knife down in the direction of from A to B, a not too thin slice should be helped; and the carving of a tongue may be continued in this way until i of butter, 1 pint of gravy (water may be sub. D Tongue.
Side of Beef. ١١١١٦ K Brisket.
Cow-heel.
Thin Flank.
B Round.
Suet.
Middle Ribs.
Brains.
Heart.
Sirloin.
B Kidneys.
D F C Aitchbone.
Shin and Melt.
Tail.
G Lights.
Rump.
Leg and Skirt.
Tripe.
Cheek.
Various Parts of Beef.
H M
BEEF, CURRIED. stituted for this), salt and pepper to taste, 1 shalot, finely minced, a pickled walnut, 1 teaspoonful of capers. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 9d.
Have the steak cut thin, and divide it in pieces about 3 inches long; beat these with the blade of a knife, and dredge with flour.
Put them in a frying-pan with the butter, and let them fry for about 3 minutes; then lay them in a small stewpan, and pour over them the gravy. Add a piece of butter kneaded with a little flour, put in the seasoning and all the other ingredients, and let the whole simmer, but not boil, for 10 minutes. Serve in a hot covered dish.
TIME.-10 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Beef, Curried. (Cold Meat Cookery.) -INGREDIENTS for small dish. A few slices of tolerably lean cold roast beef, 2 oz. of butter, 2 onions, 1 wineglassful of beer, a dessertspoonful of curry-powder. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the meat, 4d.
Cut up the beef into pieces about 1 inch square, put the butter into a stewpan with the onions sliced, and fry them of a light brown colour. Add all the other ingredients, and stir gently over a brisk fire for about 10 minutes. Should this be thought too dry, more beer, or a spoonful or two of gravy or water, may be added; but a good curry should not be very thin. Place it in a deep dish, with an edging of dry boiled rice, in the same manner as for other curries.
TIME.-10 minutes.
SEASONABLE in winter.
Collops are simply thin slices of steak, floured, flash-fried and finished in a well-seasoned gravy — a fast supper dish rather than a stew. The method survives intact; a few of the quantities and terms need translating.
- What cut to buyThe recipe says only "have the steak cut thin"; no cut or thickness is specified in this printing, and rump is the cut usually named for collops. Beating the slices with the blade of a knife is not decoration: it breaks the fibres so that a short simmer is enough to tenderise them.
- The hinge: simmer, never boil"Let the whole simmer, but not boil" is the instruction that decides the dish. Boiling makes thin slices of beef seize and turn stringy. Keep the pan at a bare tremble.
- Butter quantityThe butter for the collops has not survived legibly in this printing. An ounce or two for frying, with a little more kneaded with flour for the thickening, will serve.
- Kneaded butter"A piece of butter kneaded with a little flour" is beurre manié — equal weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste, dropped into the hot liquid at the end. Roughly a tablespoon of each will lightly bind a pint of gravy.
- Shalot, pickled walnut, capersA shalot is one shallot. Pickled walnuts are still sold in Britain and give the dark, sharp, faintly malty note the dish depends on; a teaspoon of mushroom ketchup or a dash of Worcestershire sauce sits in the same register if you cannot find them.
- Gravy or waterBeeton's "gravy" here means a plain meat gravy or stock rather than the thickened sauce served at table. Beef stock is the modern equivalent; the recipe's permission to substitute water assumes the walnut, capers and shallot will carry the seasoning.
- YieldThe weight of steak is not legible here, so any yield is a guess; a pint of gravy suggests a dish for three or four, served with mashed or boiled potatoes to take up the sauce.
- On the curried beefThe second recipe uses a wineglassful — usually reckoned about 2 fl oz — of beer, and cooks cold roast beef only ten minutes over a brisk fire. Period curry powders were blended differently from modern jars, so taste before committing a full dessertspoonful.
Collops is one of the oldest surviving words in English cookery for a slice of meat cut thin for quick frying, recorded from the fifteenth century and often linked to Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, when households ate up bacon and meat before Lent. By Beeton's time the word had narrowed to mean this kind of dish: beef sliced small, floured, briefly fried and then finished in gravy sharpened with the store-cupboard relishes every Victorian kitchen kept: capers, mushroom ketchup. It belongs to the frugal half of Household Management, alongside the cold-meat curry printed with it: dishes designed to make a small quantity of beef stretch across a table quickly, with the average cost printed so a housekeeper could budget the week in advance.