Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Spiced Round Of Beef. — ( Family Recipe.) — Procure a round of beef weighing from thirty-five to forty pounds ; remove the bone and lay the beef in a stone pan. Well rub into the beef all over (not omitting the sides of the round as well as the top and bottom), a mixture made of four pounds of salt, two pounds of coarse brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella. Turn the beef every day, and well rub into it the brine which it makes. Let it remain in pickle for one 208 COLD MEAT month. When ready for cooking let the beef be closely bound into shape with coarse webbing. Lay it in a large kettle or pot, and cover the beef with cold broth, not water. Add plenty of rough vegetables sliced, such as carrots, turnips, onions, and celery. Dry in the oven enough ginger, cloves, mace, and peppercorns to make two ounces of each when dried and pounded fine in a mortar. Add these to the beef. Bring the kettle slowly to a very gentle boil, and then let it simmer perceptibly for twelve hours. Turn the beef at the end of six hours. It must on no account be allowed to boil, or it will be hard and tasteless. Remove the kettle from the fire, but let the beef remain in it for two days, when it will have become perfectly cold. Take off the webbing, and the beef will be ready for eating. Pressed Beef. — No Pressed Beef is so good as that sold by Benoist, 36 Piccadilly. It can be had in any quantity from a couple of pounds upwards. But if the beef is prepared at home Wyvern's recipe is far the best. Choose a nice piece of the salted brisket, not too fat, weighing about five pounds. Put it into cold water, and bring slowly to the boil, skimming off all scum. When clear, let it boil, putting in (ready cut up) six ounces each of onions, carrots, and turnips, one ounce of celery, and a muslin bag containing twelve peppercorns, a blade of cinnamon, a dessertspoonful of mixed dried herbs and the rind of a lemon. ( Wyvern adds to the bag an uncut clove of garlic, but probably most people would prefer a shallot.) Simmer now for at least four hours, then take out the meat, remove the bones immediately, and wrap the joint securely in a clean napkin. Lay this upon a baking-sheet or flat dish, and put another on the top of it with weights sufficient to press it firmly. Leave it thus during the night. The next morning take off the weights, remove the cloth, trim the meat into a neat rectangular shape, and with a little diluted glaze varnish it lightly over. When this has set a second coating may be laid on, but avoid having this too thick. Rolled Spiced Beef. — Choose a piece of thin flank or brisket of Beef ; if the latter the bones must be taken out, and this should be done before the meat is salted. Wash the meat in cold water and spread it out flat. Dry it, and lay a thin coating of the following seasoning over the inside. Half an ounce of ROLLED SPICED BEEF