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Fried Beefsteak
When the means to broil are not at hand, the next best method is to heat the frying pan very hot, put in steak previously hacked, let remain a few moments, loosen with a knife and turn quickly several times; repeat this, and when done transfer to a hot platter, salt, pepper, and put over it bits of butter; pile the steaks one on top of another, and cover with a hot platter. This way of frying is both healthful and delicate. Or, heat the skillet, trim off the fat from the steak, cut in small bits and set on to fry; meanwhile pound steak, then draw the bits of suet to one side and put in the steak, turn quickly over several times so as to sear the outside, take out on a hot platter previously prepared with salt and pepper, dredge well, return to skillet, repeating the operation until the steak is done; dish on a hot platter, covering with another platter, and place where it will keep hot while making the gravy. Place a table-spoon dry flour in the skillet, being sure to have the fat boiling hot, stir until brown and free from lumps (the bits of suet may be left in, drawing them to one side until the flour is browned), pour in about half a pint boiling water (milk or cream is better), stir well, season with pepper and salt, and serve in a gravy tureen. Spread bits of butter over steak and send to table at once. This is more economical, but not so wholesome as broiling.
This is pan-searing before nonstick and before thermometers, written for a cook working over a wood or coal range. The technique still works, and the notes below translate its assumptions.
- The hinge: a genuinely hot panBoth methods depend on the skillet being hot enough that the meat sears the instant it lands. Cast iron over medium-high for five minutes, or until a drop of water skitters rather than sits. A merely warm pan will make the steak weep and stew in its own juice, which is exactly what the repeated quick turning is meant to prevent.
- "Hacked" and "pounded"Both mean mechanically tenderized with the edge or back of a heavy knife, or a mallet. Beef of this period was often tougher than what a modern butcher sells, so the step was routine; a modern ribeye or strip does not need it, though a round or flank steak still benefits.
- The repeated turningModern practice agrees with the book here, contrary to the old rule of turning meat once. Frequent flipping cooks more evenly and does not cost you a crust, provided the pan stays hot.
- Half a pintOne cup of boiling liquid to one tablespoon of flour gives a thin pouring gravy, which is what a tureen implies. For something thicker, use two tablespoons of flour to the same cup.
- Suet and trimmed fatThe second method renders the steak's own trimmed fat as the cooking medium. If your cut is closely trimmed, a tablespoon of beef tallow, clarified butter or a neutral oil serves the same purpose.
- "Dredge well"Ambiguous here: it may mean dust with flour between returns to the pan, or simply work the steak in the salt and pepper already spread on the platter. Either way it is a light dusting, not a cutlet-style coating.
- DonenessNo temperature is given because none could be measured. Pull at 130-135F internal for medium-rare, 140-145F for medium, and rest the meat under that second hot platter for five minutes.
- YieldThe recipe gives neither a weight of steak nor a number of servings. The half pint of liquid in the gravy is the only fixed quantity; portion the meat to suit.
The Dixie Cook Book, like many late nineteenth-century American compendia, ranks methods of cooking meat on a moral as well as a culinary scale: broiling first, frying a distant second, with the recipe itself concluding that this way is "more economical, but not so wholesome as broiling" -- even though it calls the first of its two methods "both healthful and delicate." That judgment reflects the era's dietetic thinking, in which fat was suspected of being hard to digest and dry heat over open coals was held to be purer. The practical reason for the ranking was the stove. A cook with a proper gridiron and a bed of coals broiled; a cook with only a closed range top and a skillet fried, and books of this period often offered both so that the same dish could be produced in either kitchen. The instruction to pile the steaks and cap them with a second heated platter is a period substitute for a warming oven, and the flour-and-fat gravy made in the same pan is a forerunner of the pan gravy still standard in Southern cooking.