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Boiled Beef
Place a brisket or round of beef in a saucepan, with some small pieces of trimmings of beef, veal, lamb or fowl giblets, salt and pepper to taste, and pour over enough water to cover, boiling them until nearly done. Then add an onion, carrots cut in slices, a bunch of parsley, a teacupful each of browned flour and butter to thicken, cover the saucepan and cook for about twenty minutes longer. When the meat is done, remove it and place upon a dish; strain the liquor, adding a wineglassful of mushroom catsup or white wine to it, and pour over the meat and serve.
A plain boiled dinner in the nineteenth-century manner, with the cooking liquid turned into a brown sauce at the end. The main adjustments are the vague volume measures and the word "boiling," which here should mean a bare simmer.
- Do not actually boil itBrisket and round both toughen and shred at a rolling boil. Bring the pot to a boil once, skim, then hold it at a bare tremble — around 180-190F — for the whole cooking time.
- Timing the meatNo time is given for the first stage because it depends on the cut. A 4-5 lb brisket needs 3 to 4 hours at a simmer; a piece of round runs 2½ to 3. "Nearly done" means a skewer enters with slight resistance, since it then cooks 20 minutes more in the thickened liquid.
- TeacupfulPeriod teacups were not standardised; a teacupful is usually reckoned at somewhere between 4 and 6 fl oz, rather than the 8 oz of a modern measuring cup. Equal cups of browned flour and butter is a very large quantity of roux for one pot — start with about half of it, judge the consistency, and hold the rest back.
- Browned flourFlour toasted dry in a pan or a slow oven until it is the colour of cinnamon. Period cookbooks often advise keeping a quantity of it ready to hand. Browned flour thickens less powerfully than raw flour, which is part of why the amounts here look so generous.
- WineglassfulAbout 2 fl oz. Mushroom catsup is a thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, not tomato ketchup; a good mushroom ketchup or a spoonful of soy plus a splash of the wine gets you to the same savoury register.
- The trimmings and gibletsThese are there to make the water into stock, not to be eaten. Fish them out before straining, or start with a light beef or chicken stock in place of the water.
- Vegetables go in lateOnion, carrot and parsley are added for only the last 20 minutes, so slice the carrots thin. If you want them as a side dish rather than as flavouring, cook them separately.
- YieldA brisket in this range serves 6 to 8. Carve across the grain, and moisten each portion with the strained sauce rather than flooding the platter.
Boiled beef was the backbone of hotel and chophouse cookery on both sides of the Atlantic: cuts like brisket and round, made palatable by long gentle cooking and a sauce built from their own liquor. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) was compiled while he was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf, and its 900-odd pages mix showpiece dishes with unglamorous staples like this one. Two details place it in its period: browned flour, kept as a pantry staple before commercial browning agents, and mushroom catsup, long a standard bottled savoury seasoning of the English-speaking kitchen. The habit of throwing in "trimmings of beef, veal, lamb or fowl giblets" is the professional kitchen's economy showing through: nothing usable was allowed out of the building without first being simmered for its flavour.