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Frizzled Beef (First place a teaspoonful)
First place a teaspoonful of butter in the skillet; then drop in the small pieces of dried beef; when the beef is slightly browned sift in a tablespoonful of flour, brown slightly to give a better flavor; then add one-third of a cupful of condensed cream; yes, condensed cream is much better than common cream, and the same amount of boiling water. After stirring all together for a few moments it is ready to serve.
A one-pan creamed dried beef, listed here as a sandwich filling rather than the breakfast-on-toast version most people know. It comes together in under ten minutes, so have everything to hand before the butter melts.
- Dried beef, then and nowThis means salt-cured, air-dried beef sliced paper-thin — sold today as chipped or sliced dried beef, often in jars or vacuum packs near the lunch meat. Tear it into pieces roughly an inch across; the packaged product is usually thinner and saltier than the old grocer's slices, so taste before adding any salt at all.
- "Condensed cream"At the time this was written this meant unsweetened tinned evaporated milk or a richer version of it, not the sweetened condensed milk in the same aisle today. Use evaporated milk. Sweetened condensed milk will make the dish cloyingly sugary.
- ProportionsOne-third cup evaporated milk plus one-third cup boiling water to one tablespoon flour gives a thin sauce that thickens as it stands. If you want it thick enough to hold in a sandwich, hold back half the water.
- The hingeBrown the flour in the butter and beef fat before any liquid goes in — the recipe says it is for flavor, and it is, but it also cooks out the raw-paste taste. A minute of steady stirring over medium heat is enough; do not let it go dark.
- Add liquid off the heatPull the pan aside and stir the milk and water in together, then return it to the burner. The recipe's water is already boiling, though the milk is not; adding the liquid off direct heat with steady stirring helps keep the sauce smooth.
- Rinse if it's very saltyModern jarred dried beef can be aggressively salty. A brief soak in warm water, then blotted dry, brings it into balance without washing out the cured flavor.
- SkilletA heavy skillet or a small saucepan both work. Avoid unlined aluminum, which can pick up a metallic edge from the salt.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantity of beef, so the yield depends on how much you use; the sauce as written is about enough for two servings over toast. Used as a sandwich filling it wants to be cooled slightly and spread thickly on soft white bread.
Dried or "chipped" beef was one of the household staples of the late nineteenth century: shelf-stable, cheap, and already cooked in the sense that curing had done the work, so it could be turned into a hot dish in minutes on a coal range. "Frizzled" is a cooking term for frying to a crisp with a sizzle, and it is often said to describe what the thin slices do in hot fat — they curl and crisp at the edges. Creamed versions like this one spread through American cookbooks and later through institutional and army kitchens, where the dish acquired its well-known barracks nickname. The author's aside recommending condensed cream over "common cream" is a small window on the period: canned evaporated milk was still new enough to be worth arguing for, and in a house without reliable refrigeration a tin on the shelf really was better than cream of uncertain age.