Harper's cook book encyclopædia

the joint with a little flour, and keep continually basting. When thoroughly done, put upon a hot dish, and sprinkle a little salt over the joint. Pour a little boiling water into the dripping, season with pepper and salt, and strain it over the meat. Beef, Roast. — While roasting before a fire is unquestionably the best method, few American kitchens are arranged for this. As a rule, “roast beef" means baked beef. The most expensive cuts are the sirloin and tenderloin, then the rib roasts. The meat should be bright red, the fat white and in streaks. If the roast is rolled, have the butcher send the bones with the roll. They will serve for making soup stock. The best sauce for roast beef is the juice of the meat with the fat drained off. Put the roast on a rack which will keep it from the bottom of the pan. Dredge it top and sides with flour. (The dredging with flour is frequently omitted.) Put two table-spoonfuls of dripping in the pan, with a little salt and pepper. The oven should be very hot for the first quarter of an hour, after that shut off the draughts and keep the oven moderately hot ; baste frequently. Time for cooking a 6 or 8 lb. rib roast rare, about ten minutes to the pound ; a rolled roast, about twelve minutes to the pound. Yorkshire Pudding (to serve with roast beef) should be brown and crisp, and is served hot with the roast beef. When the joint is within twenty minutes of being done, pour off the fat, place the joint on the wire stand in the centre of the pan, and pour the pudding batter all round the meat and bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes. Enough batter for four people consists of one pint of milk, one teacupful of flour, four to six eggs, and salt to taste. The eggs should be beaten separately, the whites added last. Beef, Round of, Spiced. — One ounce of powdered cayenne pepper. x/z oz. of cloves, Yz oz. of allspice, and two nutmegs. Rub into your beef first I oz. of saltpetre, then a cupful of sugar and two handfuls of salt. Break up the spices fine, and add them, laying the round in a large bowl or other covered vessel tight enough to hold the brine that will be formed. Turn the beef every morning, rubbing the spices in with the hand. It may be cooked in a fortnight, or left for six weeks. Stew in a pot, with beef suet strewed fine over it. Add some beef gravy, or a quart of water and a bottle of port wine or claret. It must be done slowly, taking care to keep in the steam. It will require three or four hours, perhaps five, according to the size. Cook it also in the pickle drawn from the beef, adding three or four gallons of boiling water. Take care that the beef does not touch the vessel in which it is boiled. If you choose, you majT tie it in a cloth, or wrap it in a coarse paste made for the purpose.