Sour Beef
Take a piece of beef from the rump or the lower round; cover with vinegar; add sliced onion, bay leaves, a few whole spices and salt. Let it stand a week in winter or three days in summer, turning it every day and keeping it covered. When ready to cook put a piece of fat in an iron pan; brown the meat; then strain the liquid over it and cook until the meat is tender. Remove the meat; thicken the gravy with broken gingersnaps; strain and pour over the meat, adding a few seeded raisins if desired.
This is sauerbraten under its Pennsylvania-German name, and it works well today with two adjustments: where the meat sits while it marinates, and how strong the vinegar is.
- Refrigerate, and cut the time"A week in winter" assumes an unheated larder or cellar near 40F. In a modern refrigerator, 3 to 4 days is generally enough for a 3-4 lb roast; longer adds little, since the acid penetrates only slowly, and the surface can go grey and soft.
- Dilute the vinegarStraight 5% vinegar for several days can give a harsh, puckering result on modern beef. Many versions use roughly half vinegar to half water, or vinegar cut with dry red wine, with enough liquid to cover the meat in a snug container.
- Use a non-reactive vesselGlass, glazed stoneware, or a heavy zip-top bag in a bowl. Do not marinate in the iron pan or in aluminum; the acid will pit the metal and give the gravy a metallic edge. The iron pan is for browning only.
- The whole spices"A few whole spices" here would typically mean peppercorns and whole cloves, and sometimes juniper berries and allspice -- say a teaspoon of peppercorns, 6 cloves, 6 allspice, 2 bay leaves, and one large sliced onion. Keep them whole so they strain out cleanly.
- Dry the meat before browningLift the roast out and pat it thoroughly dry, or it will steam rather than brown in the fat. A good dark crust is most of the gravy's color and flavor.
- Braise low and longRump and lower round are lean working muscles. The recipe cooks the meat in the pan; keep it covered at a bare simmer (or, if you prefer the oven, around 325F) for 2 1/2 to 3 hours until a fork turns easily. Boiling hard will make it stringy rather than tender.
- Gingersnaps as thickenerAdd the crushed cookies off the boil, about 6 to 8 for 2 cups of liquid, and let them dissolve for a few minutes before straining. Modern packaged gingersnaps are considerably sweeter than the old hard ginger cakes, so start with fewer and taste; the gravy should be tart with a ginger edge, not sweet.
- YieldA 3-4 lb roast serves 6 to 8, sliced thin across the grain. Serve with potato dumplings, spaetzle, or buttered noodles to take the gravy.
Sour beef is the Baltimore and Pennsylvania-German name for sauerbraten, the German pot roast in which a tough cut is held in spiced vinegar for days before braising — a marinade often said to have begun as a means of preservation, though the tenderizing effect of the acid is disputed. The gingersnap thickening is the detail that marks it: crumbled hard ginger cakes or Lebkuchen are generally described as the traditional binder, sweetening and thickening the sour gravy at once, and the same trick appears in American recipes using packaged gingersnaps. Mrs. Fryer's book was printed as loose leaves for a ring binder. The instruction to allow a week in winter and three days in summer is a plain reminder that the timing of any such marinade was set by the temperature of the cellar, not the calendar.