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Bouillon (Bay leaves Cinnamon and cloves)
3 pounds lean beef. 2 quarts cold water. A little celery. 1/2 small onion. 2 bay leaves Cinnamon and cloves Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon caramel Cut the beef into cubes; add water, celery, onion and bay leaves and let stand in the cooker for five or six hours. Use one radiator. When taken from cooker allow to cool and remove the fat. Before using drop in a little bag of cinnamon and cloves. Season with salt and pepper, and color with a tablespoon of caramel. Heat and serve.
This is a page from the fireless-cookery section, so the method assumes a piece of equipment almost no one owns: an insulated box heated by soapstone or cast-iron discs called radiators. The ingredient list as printed is also incomplete, which tells you something about how loose-leaf books were used.
- The missing quantitiesOnly the seasonings are listed; the beef, water, celery and onion appear in the method with no amounts at all. For a clear beef bouillon, figure roughly 2 lb of lean beef in cubes to 2 quarts of cold water, one onion and two or three stalks of celery.
- "One radiator"Fireless cookers came with heavy stone or iron discs that were heated on the range until very hot, then sealed into the insulated box with the food. Cookers of this type were commonly used with one or two discs, and one radiator here presumably indicates the gentler heat, for long standing rather than hard cooking. On a modern range, treat it as a bare simmer for about 4 hours; a slow cooker on low does the same job.
- Bring it to the boil firstThe fireless method depended on the pot going into the box already boiling hot. Setting cubed raw beef and cold water in an insulated container for five or six hours holds the meat in the range where bacteria multiply, and a slow-cooled meat broth is a textbook growth medium for Clostridium perfringens. Start it on the stove, get it to a full boil, and keep it hot the whole time.
- Cooling and skimmingThe instruction to cool and lift the fat is the right one, and it is easier if the pot is chilled quickly and refrigerated overnight, when the fat lifts off in a single plate. Do not leave it standing at room temperature to cool for hours.
- CaramelThis is not confectioner's caramel but browning: sugar cooked dark, almost to bitterness, then let down with a little water. It contributes color and a faint roasted edge, not sweetness. A commercial gravy browning such as Kitchen Bouquet serves the same purpose.
- The spice bag goes in lateCinnamon and cloves are added only at reheating, tied in muslin, and pulled out before serving. Left in through the long cooking they dominate everything; ten minutes in the hot broth is enough, and clove in particular turns medicinal if pushed.
- Strain itBouillon in this period meant a clear cup broth, not a stew. Strain out the meat and vegetables before the final seasoning; the beef cubes, spent but not worthless, can go into a hash or a pie.
- YieldAbout 6 to 8 servings as a first course, served hot in cups rather than soup plates.
Fireless cookery had a real vogue in American households between about 1900 and the 1920s: a wooden or metal box packed with hay, asbestos or mineral wool, into which you sealed a boiling pot with heated stone discs and let the retained heat finish the work. It was sold on fuel economy and on freedom from watching the stove, and it appealed particularly in summer and during the food-conservation campaigns of the First World War. The dish itself belongs to an older tradition, the clear beef bouillon served in cups at luncheons and to invalids, where appearance mattered as much as flavor -- hence the tablespoon of caramel, which is there chiefly to give the broth the deep amber color a good long-simmered stock was supposed to have.