Roast Beef

Ingredients

• two cups of boiling water
• a teaspoonful of salt
• a good teaspoonful of butter
• a little flour
• another cupful from the tea-kettle

Method

1. 1

   Have a steady, moderate fire in the stove.

2. 2

   Lay the beef, skin side uppermost, in a clean baking-pan, and dash all over it with boiling water mixed with salt.

3. 3

   Shut the oven door for twenty minutes.

4. 4

   Baste with salted water every fifteen minutes for an hour.

5. 5

   Allow twelve minutes per pound for roasting.

6. 6

   Dredge with flour and baste again before serving.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Cookery for beginners (1884) by Marion Harland, page 20. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

two cups of boiling water in which a teaspoonful of salt has been dissolved. This sears the surface slightly, and keeps in the juices. Shut the oven door, and do not open again for twenty minutes. Then, with a ladle or iron spoon dip up the salted water and pour it over the top of the meat, wetting every part again and again. Eight or ten ladlefuls should be used in this "basting/* which should be repeated every fifteen minutes for the next hour. Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat in roasting beef. Do not swing the oven door wide while you bast.e, but slip your hand (protected by an old glove or a napkin) into the space left by the half-open door, and when you have wet the surface of the roast quickly and well, shut it up again to heat and steam. A little care in this respect will add much to the flavor and tenderness of the beef. MEATS. 97 Should one side of it, or the back, brown more rapidly than the rest, turn the pan in the oven, and should the water dry up to a few spoonfuls, pour in another cupful from the tea-kettle. About twenty minutes before the time for the roasting is up, draw the pan to the oven- door, and sift flour over the meat from a flour dredger or a small sieve. Shut the door until the flour browns, then baste abundantly, and dredge again. In five minutes, or when this dredging is brown, rub the top of the meat with a good teaspoonful of butter, dredge quickly and close the door. If the fire is good, in a few minutes a nice brown froth will encrust the surface of the cooked meat. Lift the pan to the side table, take up the beef by slipping a strong cake-turner or broad knife under it, holding it firmly with a fork, and transfer to a heated platter. 98 COOKERY FOR BEGINNERS. Set in the plate-warmer, or over boiling water, while you make the gravy. Gravy (brown). Set the pan in which the meat was roasted, on the range when the beef has been removed to a dish. Scrape toward the centre the browned flour from sides and bottom and dust in a little more from your dredger as you stir. If the water has boiled away until the bottom of the pan is exposed, add a little, boiling hoty directly from the teakettle and stir until the gravy is of the consistency of rich cream. Pepper to taste and pour into a gravy boat. While I give these directions, I may remark that few people of nice taste like made thick- ened gravy with roast beef. Many prefer, in- stead) the red essence which follows the carver's knife and settles in the dish. The carver should give each person helped his or her choice in this matter. MEATS. 99 I am thus explicit with regard to roasting beef because the process is substantially the same with all meats. Dash scalding water over the piece put down for cooking in this way: heat rather slowly at first, increasing the heat as you go on ; baste faithfully ; keep the oven open as little as may be and dredge, then baste, alternately, for twenty minutes, or so, before dishing the meat. Boast Mutton. Cook exactly as you would beef: but if you wish a made gravy, pour it first from the baking-pan into a bowl and set in cold water five minutes, or until the fat has risen to the top. Skim off all of this that you can remove without disturbing the dregs. It is "mutton- tallow" — very good for chapped hands, but not for human stomachs. Return the gravy to the fire, thicken, add boiling water, if needed, and stir until smooth. • 100 COOKERY FOR BEGINNERS. Always send currant, or grape jelly, around with mutton and lamb. Boast Lamb. Cook two minutes less in the pound than you would mutton. Instead of gravy, you can send in with it, if you choose Hint Sance. To two tablespoonfuls of chopped mint, add a tablespoonful of white sugar and nearly two thirds of a cup of vinegar. Let them stand together ten minutes in a cool place before sending to table. Boast Yeal Must be cooked twice as long as beef or mutton, and very * well basted, the flesh being fibrous and dry. To the made gravy add two teaspoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato, oi one tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and cook one minute before pouring into the gravy-boat. MEATS. 101 Boast Turkey, Ohioken or Duok. It would not be- possible for me to write such directions as would enable you to pre- pare a fowl for cooking. Yet I advise you to learn how to draw and dress poultry. Watch the process closely, if you have opportunity, or else ask some experienced friend to instruct you. For the present we will suppose that our fowl is ready for the roasting pan. Lay it in tenderly, breast uppermost, pour a bountiful cup of boiling water, slightly salted, over it, if it be a chicken or duck, two cupfuls, if a turkey, and roast, basting often, about twelve minutes for each pound. When the breastbone browns, turn the fowl on one side, and as this colors, on the other, that all may be done evenly. Dredge once with flour fifteen minutes before taking . up the roast and when this browns, rub all over with a tablespoonful of butter. Shut up ten minutes longer and it is ready for dishing. Chop the liver and soft parts of the gizzard — which have been roasted with the fowl — 102 COOKERY FOR BEGINNERS. fine, and stir into the gravy while you are making it. Frioasseed OUcken. Cut up a full-grown fowl into joints, divid- ing the back and breast into two pieces each. Lay these in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour. Wipe dry with a clean cloth. In the bottom of a pot scatter a handful of chopped fat salt pork, with half a teaspoon- ful of minced onion. On this lay the pieces of chicken. Sprinkle a double handful of pork on the top with another half teaspoonful of onion, pour in carefully, enough cold water to cover all, fit on a close top, and set the pot where it will heat slowly. It should not boil under one hour at least. Increase the heat, then, but keep at a very gentle boil for another hour, or until the chicken is tender. The time needed for cooking will depend on the age of the fowl. Fast stewing will harden and toughen it. When done, take out the chicken with a fork and arrange on a warm dish, covering MEATS. 103 and keeping it hot in the plate warmer or over boiling water. Add to the gravy left in the pot two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, a heaping tablespoonful of butter cut up in the same quantity of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.