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Stuffed Steak
Stuffed steak is delicious, but needs careful preparation. Select a slice from the upper round two and half inches thick. Have the butcher cut a pocket in it and stuff this with a mixture containing one cupful of fine bread crumbs, one-quarter of a pound of sausage meat, one teaspoonful of chopped onion, two tablespoonfuls of chopped mushrooms, and a little seasoning. Fasten with toothpicks and brown well all over in a little hot fat in a deep iron skillet. Pour in sufficient boiling water to stand one-half inch deep in the pan, cover closely and simmer very slowly for three hours, adding more water as it boils away. Thicken the gravy with a little brown flour.
A braise, not a steak in the modern sense: top round is lean and tough, and the three slow hours are the whole point. The instructions are sound; most of what needs translating is the shopping and the gravy.
- The cut"Upper round" is top round, more tender than the bottom round. Ask for a single slab 2½ inches thick — depending on how wide the slice is, anything from about 3 lb upwards — and have the butcher cut a horizontal pocket leaving three sides intact. A whole top round roast split lengthwise most of the way through does the same job.
- Sausage meatBulk breakfast sausage, not links and not cased Italian. A quarter pound is about half a cup; it acts as the fat and the binder for the crumbs, so do not substitute lean ground pork without adding butter.
- Bread crumbs"Fine bread crumbs" here most likely means soft crumbs torn or grated from day-old bread rather than dry packaged crumbs, which will drink the juices and set into a paste. One cup of soft crumbs weighs roughly 1½ to 2 oz.
- FasteningToothpicks work but tend to char and fall out over three hours. Butcher's twine, or metal poultry lacers, holds better; count what you use and remove it all before slicing.
- Browning and liquidGet the pan properly hot and dry the meat first, or a 3 lb slab will steam rather than colour. Half an inch of boiling water in the skillet is a shallow braise — check every 40 minutes or so and top up, keeping the pan barely trembling rather than bubbling.
- Oven optionA covered Dutch oven at 325F is steadier than a stovetop simmer and needs less topping up. Reckon the same three hours; the meat is done when a fork turns easily in it.
- Brown flourFlour toasted dry in a skillet or a slow oven until nut-coloured. It thickens less powerfully than raw flour, so allow about 3 tablespoons to a cup and a half of pan liquid, slurried with cold water before it goes in.
- Yield and servingSix to eight portions. Let it rest 15 minutes, then slice across the grain in thick pieces so each one carries a band of stuffing. Cold leftovers slice thinly onto buttered bread.
Stuffed and braised round was one of the standard answers to the problem of cheap beef in the American kitchen around the turn of the century: a thick, lean, sinewy cut that no amount of quick heat will improve, rescued by a long moist cook and padded out with bread and a little pork. Dishes built this way went by various names in period books — mock duck, beef birds, and simply stuffed steak — and the stuffing follows the same crumb-and-sausage formula used for poultry, with chopped mushrooms as the touch of luxury. If it does sit among the sandwich recipes, that would fit the way turn-of-the-century household cookery was organised around what a joint could do over several days: a large braise served hot at dinner reappearing cold and thinly sliced in the next day's lunch, the congealed stuffing holding the slices together between bread.