Roasting
Wipe the meat with damp cloth. Trim and tie into shape, if necessary. In the tie into shape, if necessary. In the bottom of pan put some pieces of fat from meat. Arrange meat on rack in pan.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper and flour. Have oven very hot at first; when meat is half done reduce heat. Baste every ten or fifteen minutes. If there is danger of fat in pan being scorched, add a few spoons of boiling water. Allow from ten to twenty minutes per pound of meat, according as it is desired, rare or well done. When done remove to hot plate. Thicken gravy in pan with barley flour, adding more water as necessary and add seasoning. An onion may be laid on top of the roast to give it flavor, but should be removed before serving.
In purchasing meat one should know how to select the best quality, and the to select the best quality, and the most useful pieces.
Beef, which stands at the head of the list, as being most generally used and liked, should be of a bright, clear red, and fat white. It should be well clothed in fat, to insure it being tender and juicy. The finest pieces are the sirloin and the ribs -the latter making the best roasting piece in the animal.
In cooking steaks remember it is far better to turn over three or four times on a platter containing a little olive oil than it is to hammer them, to make them tender. The object is not to force the juice, but to soften the fibre.
In selecting pork, one cannot exercise too great care in examining it. Do not great care in examining it. Do not buy any that is clammy or has kernels in the fat. Remember, too, when the rind is hard it is old. a Veal should be fine in grain, of It should never be eaten under two delicate pink, with plenty of kidney fat . months old. flesh close-grained, the fat hard and Mutton should be firm and juicy , the white.
A general method rather than a single dish: the standard early twentieth-century approach of searing at high heat, then finishing lower, with pan gravy. The technique still works, but the doneness guidance needs a thermometer rather than a clock.
- The two oven temperaturesThe two oven stages -- the recipe gives no numbers. "Very hot at first" in books of this period is generally taken to mean something around 450F, with the later reduction to a moderate 325-350F. Any figures are an interpretation rather than the book's own instruction.
- Minutes per pound is unreliableTen to twenty minutes per pound is a rough guide only and takes no account of the shape of the joint or its starting temperature. Use an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part away from bone: about 125-130F for rare beef, 135-140F for medium, and 145F with a three-minute rest for pork or veal.
- Barley flourBarley was widely promoted as a wheat substitute in this period, which may hint at when the book was compiled, though it is not proof. It has less gluten than wheat flour and gives a looser gravy; ordinary all-purpose flour can be used in the same quantity, cornstarch in about half.
- Flour on the surfaceThe sprinkle of flour is there to help the exterior brown and to give the pan drippings a head start on the gravy. Keep it thin; a heavy dusting sets into a pasty layer that never crisps.
- BastingEvery ten or fifteen minutes was the standard advice in books of this period. Each opening of a modern sealed oven costs real temperature; basting two or three times over an hour is plenty, and a well-marbled roast needs none.
- The rack and the boiling waterThe fat trimmings under the rack render and keep the drippings from catching. If the pan does begin to scorch, add water that is already boiling, not cold, so the oven temperature and the pan itself do not drop suddenly.
- Buying notes that no longer apply"kernels in the fat" is generally understood to mean lymph nodes, and clammy pork indicated poor handling in an era before refrigerated retail. Veal "under two months" points to very young calves, of the sort sold as bob veal, which is uncommon at retail today.
- Resting and yieldThe instruction to remove the meat to a hot plate is also, in effect, a rest. Give a large roast 15-20 minutes loosely tented before carving. Figure about 12 oz of bone-in rib roast per person, or 6-8 oz boneless.
The instruction to thicken the gravy with barley flour is suggestive. Barley, oat and corn flours were pushed hard as wheat substitutes during and just after the First World War, when American wheat was being conserved for export, and their appearance in a general roasting recipe rather than a novelty bread may point to a book compiled in or near those years, though a single ingredient can carry only so much weight. The advice on steaks may be older still: turning meat on an oiled platter instead of pounding it reflects a period argument that mechanical hammering drove out the juices while oil and time softened the fibre.