Beef a La Mode
In a piece of the rump, cut deep openings with a sharp knife; put in pieces of pork cut into dice, previously rolled in pepper, salt, in pieces of pork cut into dice, previously rolled in pepper, salt, cloves and nutmeg . Into an iron stew-pan lay pieces of pork, sliced onions, slices of lemon, one or two carrots and a bay-leaf; lay the meat on and put over it a piece of bread-crust as large as the hand, a half-pint wine and a little vinegar, and afterwards an equal quantity of water or broth, till the meat is half covered; cover the dish close and cook till tender. Then take it out, rub the gravy thoroughly through a sieve, skim off the fat, add some sour cream, return to the stew-pan and cook ten minutes. Instead of the cream, capers or sliced cucumber pickles can be added to the gravy if preferred, or a handful of grated ginger-bread or rye bread. The meat can also be laid for some days before in a spiced vinegar or wine pickle. - Mrs. L. S. Williston, Heidelberg, Germany.
A German pot roast written by an American contributor living in Heidelberg, and the German habits show: larding, a wine-and-vinegar braise, sour cream in the sauce, gingerbread as a thickener. A heavy lidded Dutch oven and a slow low fire do all the work.
- The hinge: the sour creamSour cream added to a hot, acidic gravy will break if it boils. Stir it in off the heat, then hold the pan at the barest tremble for the ten minutes given — no bubbles breaking the surface.
- A typographical stutterThe phrase "in pieces of pork cut into dice, previously rolled in pepper, salt" is set twice in the original. It is a compositor's error, not a second batch of larding; season and insert the pork dice once.
- Cut and quantity"A piece of the rump" is a boneless rump roast; the recipe gives no weight. A piece of about 3 to 4 lb suits the method and will serve six to eight. Tie it into an even cylinder so it braises uniformly.
- LardingThe pork dice are fat pork, most likely salt pork or fatback, pushed deep into the knife slits with the handle of a wooden spoon or a larding needle. The interior fat is what keeps a long braise from drying, so be generous.
- Vessel and heatAn "iron stew-pan" is a heavy pot with a tight lid; the recipe gives no oven and no temperature, only 'cook till tender.' Braise at a bare simmer on the stovetop, or in an oven at around 300-325F, allowing roughly 3 to 3½ hours for a 3-4 lb piece to become fork-tender.
- LiquidsA half-pint of wine is one cup. Dry red is usual; add a few tablespoons of vinegar and then water or broth only until the meat is half submerged, not covered — this is a braise, not a boil.
- The bread crust and the gingerbreadBoth are thickeners. The palm-sized crust dissolves into the braise; the "grated ginger-bread" means dry German Pfefferkuchen or Lebkuchen, which adds spice and a faint sweetness along with body. Modern soft American gingerbread is too sugary — use a hard spiced cookie, a couple of ounces, or thicken with a beurre manié instead.
- The vinegar pickleMarinating "for some days" turns this into sauerbraten proper. Do it in a covered non-reactive container in the refrigerator, two to three days, and pat the meat dry before larding and browning; a room-temperature marinade of the kind the original assumes is not safe.
- Finishing the gravyPushing the vegetables through a sieve is what gives the sauce its body — do not strain them out and discard them. Skim the fat properly; a wine braise on a fatty rump throws off a great deal.
Beef à la mode is a French braise -- larded, wined, and long-cooked -- that was taken up widely in northern Europe and thoroughly naturalized in Germany, where the vinegar version became Sauerbraten and the gingerbread thickener a regional signature, particularly around the Rhineland. This version is signed from Heidelberg, and the address is part of the point: a recipe attributed to a contributor writing from Germany carried a weight that the same instructions from an American town would not. The subscription compilations of the era were assembled from named contributions. What she describes -- the crust of bread dissolved into the sauce, the grated Lebkuchen, the sour cream, the alternative of capers or cucumber pickles -- reads as a record of how the dish was varied in German kitchens rather than a tidied restaurant formula.