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Beef Rissolettes
Mince some fresh beef very fine, removing all skin and gristle, mix with it about a fourth of its weight in breadcrumbs, adding an onion boiled tender, and a few drops of essence of anchovy, pepper and salt, and sufficient egg to make it into a stiff paste. Roll into egg-shaped balls, dip each in egg, roll in breadcrumbs, and fry gently. Then prepare a little gravy by boiling the trimmings of the meat in the water the onion was boiled in, and when they are done, pour the fat from the fryingpan and allow the gravy to boil up in it, and thicken with a small quantity of flour and water. Stir in the juice of half a lemon, seasoning with pepper and salt, and place the rissolettes around a heap of mashed potatoes on a dish, pour the gravy around but not over them, and serve.
Roast Beef, American Style Lay the meat on some sticks in a dripping-pan, so as not to touch the water which it is requisite to have in the bottom; season with salt and pepper and place in a roasting-oven for three or four hours. Baste frequently with the water in the bottom of the pan. Sift over the meat before serving some powdered and browned crackers, and garnish with parsley. Roast Beef on the Spit Remove most of the flap from the sirloin and trim neatly; have a clear, brisk fire, and place the meat close to it for the first half hour, then move it farther away, basting frequently, and when done, sprinkle the joint well with salt. The gravy may be prepared by taking the meat from the dripping-pan, which will leave a brown sediment; pour in some boiling water and salt, and stir thoroughly, straining over the meat. A thickening of flour may be added if necessary. Garnish with horseradish and serve with horseradish sauce in a tureen.
Three beef recipes run together on one page: a fried mince ball with pan gravy, and two treatments of a roast. The rissolettes are the only one with real measurements, and even those are proportional rather than absolute.
- The one proportion that mattersBreadcrumbs at one quarter the weight of the meat is a lot of filler — 4 oz crumbs to 1 lb beef. Add the egg a little at a time and stop when the mix just holds a shape; too much egg and the balls swell and split in the fat.
- Essence of anchovyA Victorian bottled anchovy seasoning, thicker than modern fish sauce. A teaspoon of anchovy paste, or two mashed oil-packed fillets, gives a similar savoury lift; at a few drops it works as background seasoning rather than a pronounced fish flavour.
- Fry gentlyThe frying-pan and the instruction to pour off the fat afterwards point to shallow frying rather than deep-frying: enough fat to come partway up the balls, turning them to brown all sides. Keep the heat moderate and allow something like 8 to 10 minutes for egg-sized balls, since the beef is raw going in and must cook through.
- The gravy uses two by-productsThe onion water and the boiled meat trimmings do the work of stock here. If you have skipped both, a cup of good beef stock deglazing the pan is the honest substitute.
- Pour around, not overThe instruction is deliberate: the breadcrumb crust goes soft the moment gravy touches it. Sauce the platter, mound the potato in the centre, ring the rissolettes.
- Roast beef, American styleNo temperature is given, and none can be inferred from the text. Three to four hours suits a large joint at a moderate oven, but with water in the bottom of the pan and the meat basted from it this is a slow, steam-basted roast that will come out grey and well done throughout. Modern practice is to roast dry and pull a rib or sirloin roast at 130F internal.
- Powdered and browned crackersPlain unsweetened crackers toasted in the oven until tan, then crushed to a coarse powder. Toasted panko is a reasonable current stand-in.
- Spit roastingWritten for a spit before an open fire, with a dripping-pan beneath, not a rotisserie attachment. The logic still holds on a covered grill: high heat close to the fire to set the exterior, then back it off and let it finish by radiant heat.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantities. Working from a pound of beef, expect roughly a dozen egg-shaped rissolettes, enough for three or four with the mashed potato.
Rissolettes are a diminutive of rissole, from the Old French for something reddened or browned, and the name was applied loosely in nineteenth-century English cookery to almost any small fried croquette of minced meat. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 while he was maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf, is far broader than a hotel repertoire; alongside the elaborate service dishes it collects plain domestic cookery of exactly this kind, and the flat, instructional prose here reads more like an English household manual than a New York kitchen.