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Braised Beef
Place a layer of sliced onions in the bottom of a stewpan, over which arrange a layer of thick slices of bacon, and put a piece of round of beef on the bacon, after tying up the beef to keep it in shape. Set on the fire for twenty minutes, turning it once or twice, then add a tumblerful of wine, some carrots and onions cut in slices, a bundle of sweet herbs, pepper and salt to taste, add a few cloves. Fill the pan with sufficient stock to cover the beef, placing the lid on the pan, and braise it from four to five hours, with a few hot cinders on the lid, or else in the oven. Strain free from all fat, and serve with the meat gravy.
A classic braise laid out in the shorthand a professional kitchen of 1896 could assume. The hinge is the first twenty minutes: the beef is sweating over onions and bacon with no liquid at all, and that dry stage is where the fond and the flavour come from.
- The first twenty minutes"Set on the fire for twenty minutes" appears to mean uncovered, since the lid is not called for until the liquid goes in, over moderate direct heat, so the bacon renders and the onions and meat colour in the fat. Turn the beef once or twice and let it take colour before any liquid goes in; if you rush to the wine you lose the browning the dish rests on.
- A tumblerfulA tumbler in this period is roughly 8 fluid ounces, one cup. Red wine is the assumption for beef, though the recipe does not say.
- Round of beefNo weight is given. A tied piece of top or bottom round of 4 to 5 lb suits the method and the timing; round is lean and needs the full wet braise to become tender. Modern cooks often prefer chuck for the same treatment, which gives a richer result but breaks apart more readily.
- Hot cinders on the lid, or the ovenThe cinders supplied top heat so the meat cooked from above as well as below, the old Dutch-oven technique. The recipe gives no oven temperature; a covered heavy pot at 300 to 325F is a reasonable modern equivalent.
- TimingFour to five hours is right for a large lean round at low heat, but check from three hours on. Doneness is judged by a skewer or fork sliding out with no resistance, not by the clock.
- Bundle of sweet herbsA bouquet garni: parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string or in muslin so it can be lifted out. Sweet here means aromatic rather than sugary.
- Stock to coverCovering the beef entirely makes this closer to a pot-au-feu than a modern braise, where liquid comes two-thirds up so the exposed top continues to brown. Either works; less liquid gives a more concentrated gravy.
- Straining free from fatThe bacon and the beef throw a great deal of fat over a long braise. Strain the liquid, let it settle, and skim; chilling it makes the fat lift off in a sheet. Reduce the strained liquid hard if you want gravy rather than broth.
- YieldA 4 to 5 lb round serves eight to ten, and it slices far better cold or cooled slightly in its own liquid than straight from the pot.
Oscar Tschirky's book gathers the standing repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen at the end of the nineteenth century, and this is the French boeuf braise as it had been absorbed into that repertoire: the bed of onions and bacon lining the braising pot, the dry sweating, the wine, the long enclosed cooking. The name comes from braise, the French word for the embers themselves, which is exactly what the instruction about hot cinders on the lid describes; a braising pan proper had a recessed lid made to hold coals. By the time Oscar was writing, coal ranges and closed ovens had made that step optional, and the recipe offers both. Round of beef was tough enough to need the hours and lean enough to slice cleanly for service.