Home › Fish and Meat Dishes › Cottle Steak
Cottle Steak
Cut 3 lbs. bottom round (or a cheaper cut of beef will do) into pieces the size of an egg. Roll each piece in flour and brown in frying pan in plenty of fat. Remove to casserole or small covered roaster. Fry several large onions in frying pan that meat was browned in. Pour over onions three cups water, salt to taste, pepper and speck of curry powder. Pour over meat and allow to simmer from two to three hours. Add more water if necessary.
— Mrs. R. Josephson
A plain braise of the sort that fills the meat chapters of church cookbooks: flour, fat, onions, water, time. The instructions are complete but assume a cook who already knows what a low simmer looks like.
- "Casserole" here means a potIn this period a casserole is a lidded flameproof vessel, not a shallow baking dish. A Dutch oven or any heavy covered pot is what is wanted; the recipe directs a simmer and gives no oven direction.
- Pieces the size of an eggThat is roughly 2 oz cubes, about 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Cut smaller and 2-3 hours of simmering will shred them.
- "Plenty of fat"Enough to film the pan generously, a few tablespoons. Brown in batches so the pieces sear rather than steam; the flour coating burns quickly, so keep the heat at medium-high, not maximum.
- The flour is the thickenerThere is no separate roux or slurry. The flour dredge on the meat plus whatever sticks in the pan is what turns three cups of water into gravy, so scrape the browned pan well when the onions go in.
- "Several large onions"Read this as three to four, sliced. They should soften and take colour in the beef fat before the water goes in; that browning is most of the flavour in a recipe with almost no other seasoning.
- Speck of curry powderAbout 1/4 teaspoon. Curry powder here is a background seasoning rather than a flavour theme, and more will make the dish taste like something else entirely.
- Simmer, do not boilThe hinge of the dish. A bare simmer for 2-3 hours renders bottom round tender; a rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and no amount of extra time will fix it. Check the water level every 45 minutes or so.
- YieldThree pounds of beef serves six generously, with mashed potatoes or noodles to take the gravy.
This is a braise of beef under a family name, and the attribution is the point: Philathea cookbooks were compiled by the Philathea classes, the young women's Bible-study organisation that spread through Baptist and other Protestant Sunday schools in the early twentieth century, and the recipes were collected from members and printed with their names attached. Dishes like this one traveled by reputation within a congregation, which is why the title tells you nothing about the food. The technique itself is old and universal: flour-dredged cheap beef browned in fat, then stewed long and slow with onions until the connective tissue in a working muscle like bottom round breaks down to gelatin. The "speck of curry powder" is the period detail worth noticing, used not to make a curry but simply to add depth to gravy.