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Potatoes Baked with Beef
Pare potatoes of equal size and put them into the oven in the same pan in which the beef is baked. Every time the beef is basted, the potatoes should be basted also.
A one-line instruction that assumes a joint of beef already roasting in an open pan. The whole method rests on the pan drippings, so the details that matter are the ones the original leaves out.
- The hinge: equal sizeUniform potatoes are not simply an aesthetic point. Basted rather than turned continuously in fat, a small potato will be overdone well before a large one is cooked through, so cut oversized ones down to match rather than leaving them whole.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none; it simply assumes the oven the beef is already in. In modern terms a hot oven, around 425F, suits both: much below 400F and the potatoes steam in the drippings instead of crusting.
- TimingPeeled potatoes of roughly 2 inches take 45 to 60 minutes at 425F. Add them to the pan so they finish with the beef rather than putting them in at the start of a two-hour roast.
- BastingBasting the potatoes means spooning the pan fat over them, not the thin pan juices, which will not brown anything. If the pan has gone dry, add a spoonful of beef fat rather than water.
- Room in the panThe potatoes need contact with the hot pan bottom and space between them. A crowded pan traps steam and the surfaces stay pale and soft. Use a second pan with a ladle of drippings if the roasting pan is full.
- Modern roasting practiceBeef today is often roasted on a rack, which keeps the pan floor too dry for this to work. Set the potatoes directly in the pan beneath or beside the rack so they sit in the fat as it renders.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; two medium potatoes a person is a workable modern reckoning. Salting them as they go in is also an addition, but the drippings alone will rarely season them through.
Roasting potatoes in the dripping pan under or beside the joint is a long-established way of cooking them in fat, and in English and American kitchens it is older than the deep-fried potato. The instruction recurs in nineteenth-century household books in much this form, and its economy is plain enough: the fat, the oven heat and the labor were already committed to the beef. The method faded from print as ranges gained closed ovens with racks and as cooks began roasting on trivets to keep meat out of its own fat, which is exactly the fat this recipe depends on.