Roast Beef
The best cuts of beef for roasting are: tip or middle of sirloin, back of rump, or first three ribs. Tip of sirloin roast is desirable for a small family. Back of rump makes a superior roast for a large family, and is more economical than sirloin. It is especially desirable where a large quantity of dish gravy is liked, for in carving the meat juices follow the knife. Rib roasts contain more fat than either of the others, and are somewhat cheaper.
To Roast Beef. Wipe, put on a rack in dripping-pan, skin side down, rub over with salt, and dredge meat and pan with flour. Place in hot oven, that the surface may be quickly seared, thus preventing escape of inner juices. After flour in pan is browned, reduce heat, and baste with fat which has tried out; if meat is quite lean, it may be necessary to put trimmings of fat in pan. Baste every ten minutes; if this rule is followed, meat will be found more juicy. When meat is about half done, turn it over and dredge with flour, that skin side may be uppermost for final browning. For roasting, consult Time Table for Baking Meats, page 30. If there is danger of flour burning in pan, add a small quantity of water; this, however, is not desirable, and seldom need be done if size of pan is adapted to size of roast. Beef to be well roasted should be started in hot oven and heat decreased, so that when carved the slices will be red throughout, with a crisp layer of golden brown fat on the top. Beef roasted when temperature is so high that surface is hardened before heat can penetrate to the centre is most unsatisfactory.
Sirloin or rib roasts may have the bones removed, and be rolled, skewered, and tied in shape. Chicago Butt is cut from the most tender part of back of rump. They are shipped from Chicago, our greatest beef centre, and if fresh and from a heavy creature, make excellent roasts at a small price.
Roast Beef Gravy. Remove some of the fat from pan, leaving four tablespoons. Place on front of range, add four tablespoons flour, and stir until well browned. The flour, dredged and browned in pan, should give additional color to gravy. Add gradually one and one-half cups boiling water, cook five minutes, season with salt and pepper, and strain. If flour should burn in pan, gravy will be full of black particles.
To Carve a Roast of Beef. Have roast placed on platter skin side up; with a pointed, thin-bladed, sharp knife cut a sirloin or rib roast in thin slices at right angles to the ribs, and cut slices from ribs. If there is tenderloin, remove it from under the bone, and cut in thin slices across grain of meat. Carve back of rump in thin slices with the grain of meat; by so doing, some of the least tender muscle will be served with that which is tender. By cutting across grain of meat, the tenderest portion is sliced by itself, as is the less tender portion. 1 cup milk 1 cup flour
Fannie Farmer's roasting method predates the meat thermometer, so the doneness cues are visual and the oven settings are relative. The technique itself — hot start, reduced finish — is still sound; the timings and the constant basting are not.
- The cuts, translated"Back of rump" is the boneless rump roast, sold now as rump roast or bottom round. "Tip of sirloin" means the end of the sirloin, which is not necessarily the cut a butcher today calls sirloin tip or knuckle. "First three ribs" is usually taken to mean the loin end of the rib section, the same primal sold today as prime rib.
- Chicago ButtA period market name for a rump cut shipped from the Chicago packing houses. Ask for a rump roast or top sirloin; the name has not survived outside old cookbooks.
- Use a thermometerThe instruction that matters most, and the one she could not give. Pull a rib or sirloin roast at 120–125F internal for rare, 130F for medium rare; it will climb another 5–8F while resting. Her stated goal — slices red throughout under a crisp brown cap — is exactly what a thermometer delivers reliably.
- Basting every ten minutesSkip it. Opening the door that often costs more in oven recovery than the fat adds in moisture, and basting does not penetrate the surface. Fat rubbed or left on the roast does the same job. The flour dredge, however, is worth keeping for the browned pan drippings it gives the gravy.
- Rest the meatNo resting period is mentioned anywhere here. Let a large roast stand 15–20 minutes, loosely tented, before carving, or the juices she is at such pains to preserve will run out onto the platter.
- Carving the rumpHer advice to slice rump with the grain is deliberate — it distributes tender and less tender muscle across each portion — but it produces chewier slices than modern carving. Cutting across the grain and slicing thin is the better choice for a bottom round.
- The gravyFour tablespoons fat to four tablespoons flour to one and a half cups boiling water gives about a cup and a half of gravy, and a thick one by modern proportions. Brown the roux properly; the residual dredged flour in the pan supplies the color, and if it has scorched, the gravy is beyond rescue.
- The stray line at the end"1 cup milk, 1 cup flour" is not part of the roast; it appears to be stranded from a neighbouring recipe, quite possibly a Yorkshire pudding. Ignore it here.
Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book first appeared in 1896, and its authority rested on standardized measurement — the level cup and level spoon — at a time when cookbooks still commonly said "butter the size of an egg." This entry shows the limits of that project: she could standardize the gravy to the tablespoon, but oven heat was still described as hot or moderate because coal and wood ranges had no dials, and doneness was still judged by eye. The market vocabulary is equally of its moment. The reference to Chicago as "our greatest beef centre" points to the Union Stock Yards and the refrigerated rail car, which by the 1890s had made Western beef cheap and routine on Eastern tables; a Boston housekeeper could buy a rump cut butchered a thousand miles away and expect it to arrive sound. The careful ranking of cuts by family size and economy is typical of the book's tone throughout — it is a manual for running a household on a budget, not a celebration of the roast.