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Beefsteak En Casserole
Trim and wipe a good-sized porterhouse or round steak. Broil it for three minutes on each side over a very hot fire, then transfer it to the casserole. Have ready a pint of rich highly-seasoned brown sauce, pour it into the casserole, add a little madeira. Fasten on the cover with paste of flour and water and place in a moderate oven for two hours. Loosen the cover, add one cupful of potato balls, which have been browned in deep fat, and send the casserole to the table.
A braise that starts on the fire and finishes sealed in the oven, which is where most of the work happens. The sealing paste and the two-hour oven are the two things worth getting right.
- Cut of meatA porterhouse will not benefit from two hours in the oven; it is a tender cut and will end up dry and stringy. Round steak, the other option given, is the sensible one here, as is chuck. Use a piece 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick, about 2 1/2 to 3 lb.
- "Casserole"In period usage this means a lidded earthenware or heavy metal pot that goes from oven to table, closer to a modern Dutch oven or covered braiser than to a shallow baking dish. It needs a tight-fitting lid.
- Moderate oven325 to 350F. Two hours at that temperature is right for round or chuck; check at 90 minutes and pull it when a fork goes in with no resistance.
- The flour-and-water pasteA stiff dough of flour and just enough water to bind, rolled into a rope and pressed around the rim to seal the lid. It is a seal, not food, and is discarded. A sheet of parchment or foil under the lid does the same job if the pot fits well.
- A pint of brown sauceTwo cups of proper espagnole or a well-reduced beef stock sauce, thickened with browned roux. "Highly seasoned" here most likely means generous salt and pepper and a well-flavoured stock base rather than heat. Bottled gravy will taste thin against two hours of braising.
- MadeiraA little means a couple of tablespoons, added with the sauce so the alcohol cooks off. Use a dry-ish Sercial or Verdelho rather than a sweet Malmsey, or dry sherry.
- Potato ballsSmall spheres cut from raw potato with a melon baller, or peeled new potatoes, deep-fried until browned. They go in only at the end so they hold their shape and crust; a cupful is roughly 5 to 6 oz.
- YieldServes four to six, sliced across the grain with the sauce spooned over. Skim the fat from the sauce before serving.
The vessel was the point of the dish. Sealing a lid with a rope of flour-and-water paste is an old European technique, used for everything from pot roasts to baked pastes of game, and it exists because early ovens and lids leaked; the paste trapped steam and aroma. The brief three-minute broiling before the braise is a searing step meant to give colour and flavour, and the fried potato balls added at the last minute are typical of the period's fondness for a garnish with contrasting texture.