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Celery (Tablespoon salt Wipe beef)
1 tablespoon salt Wipe beef, and cut the lean meat in inch cubes. Brown one-third of meat in hot frying-pan in marrow from a marrow-bone. Put remaining two-thirds with bone and fat in soup kettle, add water, and let stand for thirty minutes. Place on back of range, add browned meat, and heat gradually to boiling-point. As scum rises it should be removed. Cover, and cook slowly six hours, keeping below boiling-point during cooking. Add vegetables and seasonings, cook one and one-half hours, strain, and cool as quickly as possible.
This is the standard long-simmered brown beef stock that underpins most of the soup chapter. The method survives intact even though the quantities that opened it do not.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe instruction to keep the pot below boiling for the whole six hours is the entire point. A bare shiver of movement, around 180-190F, keeps the fat and albumin from emulsifying into the liquid; a rolling boil gives you cloudy, greasy stock that no amount of straining will clear.
- Browning only part of the meatOne-third seared, two-thirds raw is deliberate. The browned cubes supply roasted flavour and colour, the raw meat and bone supply clean gelatine and body. Brown that third hard, in a single layer, and deglaze the pan into the kettle.
- Marrow from a marrow-boneAsk a butcher for split beef marrow bones, or substitute a spoonful of beef tallow or a neutral high-smoke-point oil. Marrow burns quickly, so get the meat in as soon as it liquefies.
- The cold-water soakThe thirty-minute stand -- The meat stands in the water for half an hour before any heat is applied (the water is presumably cold, since the pot is then heated gradually). This draws soluble protein out of the meat, which is likely why the scum rises so freely at the start. The recipe asks that scum be removed as it rises, so skim as it appears.