Prolonged Cooking at Low Heat—Stewed Shin of Beef—Boiled Beef with Horseradish Sauce—Stuffed Heart—Braised Beef, Pot Roast, and Beef a la Mode—Hungarian Goulash—Casserole Cookery—Meat Cooked with Vinegar—Sour Beef—Sour Beefsteak—Pounded Meat—Farmer Stew—Spanish Beefsteak—Chopped Meat—Savory Rolls—Developing Flavor of Meat—Retaining Natural Flavor—Round Steak on Biscuits—Flavor of Browned Meat or Fat—Salt Pork with Milk Gravy—"Salt-Fish Dinner"—Sauces—Mock Venison.
Meat may be cooked in water in a number of ways without being allowed to reach the boiling point. With the ordinary kitchen range this is accomplished by cooking on the cooler part of the stove rather than on the hottest part, directly over the fire. Experience with a gas stove, particularly if it has a small burner known as a "simmerer," usually enables the cook to maintain temperatures which are high enough to sterilize the meat if it has become accidentally contaminated in any way and to make it tender without hardening the fibers. The double boiler would seem to be a neglected utensil for this purpose. Its contents can easily be kept up to a temperature of 200 degrees F., and nothing will burn. Another method is by means of the fireless cooker. In this a high temperature can be maintained for a long time without the application of fresh heat. Still another method is by means of a closely covered baking dish. Earthenware dishes of this kind suitable for serving foods as well as for cooking are known as casseroles. For cooking purposes a baking dish covered with a plate or a bean jar covered with a saucer may be substituted. The Aladdin oven has long been popular for the purpose of preserving temperatures which are near the boiling point and yet do not reach it. It is a thoroughly insulated oven which may be heated either by a kerosene lamp or a gas jet.
In this connection directions are given for using some of the toughest and less promising pieces of meat.
4 pounds of shin of beef. 1 medium-sized onion. 1 whole clove and a small bay leaf. 1 sprig of parsley. 1-1/2 tablespoonfuls of flour. 1 small slice of carrot. 1/2 tablespoonful of salt. 1/2 teaspoonful of pepper. 2 quarts of boiling water. 1-1/2 tablespoonfuls of butter or savory drippings.
Have the butcher cut the bone in several pieces. Put all the ingredients but the flour and butter into a stewpan and bring to a boil. Set the pan where the liquid will just simmer for six hours, or after boiling for five or ten minutes, put all into the fireless cooker for eight or nine hours. With the butter, flour, and one-half cupful of the clear soup from which the fat has been removed, snake a brown sauce (see p. 39); to this add the meat and the marrow removed from the bone. Heat and serve. The remainder of the liquid in which the meat has been cooked may be used for soup.
Plain boiled beef may also be served with horseradish sauce, and makes a palatable dish. A little chopped parsley sprinkled over the meat when served is considered an improvement by many persons. For the sake of variety the meat may be browned like pot roast before serving.
Wash the heart thoroughly inside and out, stuff with the following mixture, and sew up the opening: One cup broken bread dipped in fat and browned in the oven, 1 chopped onion, and salt and pepper to taste.
Cover the heart with water and simmer until tender or boil ten minutes and set in the fireless cooker for six or eight hours. Remove from the water about one-half hour before serving. Dredge with flour, pepper, and salt, or sprinkle with crumbs and bake until brown.
The above names are given to dishes made from the less tender cuts of meat They vary little either in composition or method of preparation. In all cases the meat is browned on the outside to increase the flavor and then cooked in a small amount of water in a closely covered kettle or other receptacle until tender. The flavor of the dish is secured by browning the meat and by the addition of the seasoning vegetables. Many recipes suggest that the vegetables be removed before serving and the liquid be thickened. As the vegetables are usually extremely well seasoned by means of the brown fat and the extracts of the meat, it seems unfortunate not to serve them.
Of course, the kind, quality, and shape of the meat all play their part in the matter. Extra time is needed for meats with a good deal of sinew and tough fibers, such as the tough steaks, shank cuts, etc.; and naturally a fillet of beef, or a steak from a prime cut, will take less time than a thick piece from the shin. Such dishes require more time and perhaps more skill in their preparation and may involve more expense for fuel than the more costly cuts, which like chops or tender steaks may be quickly cooked, but to the epicure, as well as to the average man, they are palatable when rightly prepared.
2 pounds top round of beef. A little flour. 2 ounces salt pork. 2 cups tomatoes. 1 stalk celery. 1 onion. 2 bay leaves. 6 whole cloves. 6 peppercorns. 1 blade mace.
Cut the beef into 2-inch pieces and sprinkle with flour; fry the salt pork until light brown; add the beef and cook slowly for about thirty-five minutes, stirring occasionally. Cover with water and simmer about two hours; season with salt and pepper or paprika.
From the vegetables and spices a sauce is made as follows: Cook in sufficient water to cover for twenty minutes; then rub through a sieve, and add to some of the stock in which the meat was cooked. Thicken with flour, using 2 tablespoonfuls (moistened with cold water) to each cup of liquid, and season with salt and paprika.
Serve the meat on a platter with the sauce poured over it. Potatoes, carrots, and green peppers cooked until tender, and cut into small pieces or narrow strips, are usually sprinkled over the dish when served, and noodles may be arranged in a border upon the platter.
Goulash is a Hungarian dish which has come to be a favorite in the United States.
A casserole is a heavy earthenware dish with a cover. A substitute for it can easily be improvised by using any heavy earthenware dish with a heavy plate for the cover. A casserole presentable enough in appearance to be put on the table serves the double purpose of baking and serving dish.
A suitable cut of beef or veal, and it may well be one of the cheaper cuts, as the long, slow cooking insures tenderness, may be cooked in a casserole.
Poultry and other meats besides beef or veal can be cooked in this manner. Chicken cooked in a casserole, which is a favorite and expensive dish in good hotels and restaurants, may be easily prepared in the home, and casserole cookery is to be recommended for a tough chicken.
The heat must be moderate and the cooking must occupy a long time. Hurried cooking in a casserole is out of the question. If care is taken in this particular, and suitable seasonings are used, few who know anything of cooking should go astray.
Chopped meat also may be cooked in a casserole and this utensil is particularly useful for the purpose, because the food is served in the same dish in which it is cooked and may easily be kept hot, a point which is important with chopped meats, which usually cool rapidly.
Dishes of similar sort as regards cooking, but in which vinegar is used to give flavor as well as to soften the meat and make it tender, are the following:
Take a piece of beef from the rump or the lower round, cover with vinegar or with a half-and-half mixture of vinegar and water, add sliced onion, bay leaves, and a few mixed whole spices and salt Allow to stand a week in winter or three or four days in summer; turn once a day and keep covered. When ready to cook, brown the meat in fat, using an enameled iron pan, strain the liquid over it and cook until tender; thicken the gravy with flour or ginger snaps (which may be broken up first), strain it, and pour over the sliced meat. Some cooks add cream.
Round steak may be cooked in water in which there is a little vinegar, or if the time is sufficient, it may be soaked for a few hours in vinegar and water and then cooked in a casserole or in some similar way.
Pounding meat before cooking is an old-fashioned method of making it tender, but while it has the advantage of breaking down the tough tissues it has the disadvantage of being likely to drive out the juices and with them the flavor. A very good way of escaping this difficulty is pounding flour into the meat; this catches and retains the juices. Below are given the recipes for two palatable dishes in which this is done:
Pound flour into both sides of a round steak, using as much as the meat will take up. This may be done with a meat pounder or with the edge of a heavy plate. Fry in drippings, butter, or other fat, in a Scotch bowl, or if more convenient in an ordinary iron kettle or a frying pan; then add water enough to cover it. Cover the dish very tightly so that the steam cannot escape and allow the meat to simmer for two hours or until it is tender. One advantage of this dish is that ordinarily it is ready to serve when the meat is done as the gravy is already thickened. However, if a large amount of fat is used in the frying, the gravy may not be thick enough and must be blended with flour.
Take a piece of round steak weighing two pounds and about an inch thick; pound until thin, season with salt and Cayenne pepper, cover with a layer of bacon or salt pork, cut into thin slices, roll and tie with a cord. Pour around it half a cupful of milk and half a cupful of water. Place in a covered baking dish and cook two hours, basting occasionally.
Chopping meat is one of the principal methods of making tough and inexpensive meat tender, i.e., dividing it finely and thus cutting the connective tissue into small bits. Such meats have another advantage in that they may be cooked quickly and economically.
Chopped raw meat of almost any kind can be very quickly made into a savory dish by cooking it with water or with water and milk for a short time, then thickening with butter and flour, and adding different seasonings as relished, either pepper and salt alone, or onion juice, celery, or tomato. Such a dish may be made to "go further" by serving it on toast or with a border of rice or in some similar combination.
Savory rolls in great variety are made out of chopped meat either with or without egg. The variety is secured by the flavoring materials used and by the sauces with which the baked rolls are served. A few recipes will be given below. While these definite directions are given it should be remembered that a few general principles borne in mind make recipes unnecessary and make it possible to utilize whatever may happen to be on hand. Appetizing rolls are made with beef and pork mixed. The proportion varies from two parts of beef and one of pork to two of pork and one of beef. The rolls are always improved by laying thin slices of salt pork or bacon over them, which keep the surface moistened with fat during the roasting. These slices should be scored on the edge, so that they will not curl up in cooking. The necessity for the salt pork is greater when the chopped meat is chiefly beef than when it is largely pork or veal. Bread crumbs or bread moistened in water can always be added, as it helps to make the dish go farther. When onions, green peppers, or other vegetables are used, they should always be thoroughly cooked in fat before being put in the roll, for usually they do not cook sufficiently in the length of time it takes to cook the meat. Sausage makes a good addition to the roll, but it is usually cheaper to use unseasoned pork meat with the addition of a little sage.
The typical meat flavors are very palatable to most persons, even when they are constantly tasted, and consequently the better cuts of meat in which they are well developed can be cooked and served without attention being paid especially to flavor. Careful cooking aids in developing the natural flavor of some of the cheaper cuts, and such a result is to be sought wherever it is possible. Browning also brings out flavors agreeable to most palates. Aside from these two ways of increasing the flavor of the meat itself there are countless ways of adding flavor to otherwise rather tasteless meats. The flavors may be added in preparing the meat for cooking, as in various seasoned dishes already described, or they may be supplied to cook meat in the form of sauces.
As has already been pointed out, it is extremely difficult to retain the flavor-giving extractives in a piece of meat so tough as to require prolonged cooking. It is sometimes partially accomplished by first searing the exterior of the meat and thus preventing the escape of the juices. Another device, illustrated by the following recipe, is to let them escape into the gravy which is served with the meat itself. A similar principle is applied when roasts are basted with their own juice.
Cut round steak into pieces about one-half inch square, cover with water and cook it at a temperature just below the boiling point until it is tender, or boil for five minutes, and while still hot put into the fireless cooker and leave it for five hours. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with water, allowing two level tablespoonfuls to a cup of water. Pour the meat and gravy over split baking-powder biscuits so baked that they have a large amount of crust.
Next to the unchanged flavor of the meat itself comes the flavor which is secured by browning the meat with fat. The outside slices of roast meat have this browned flavor in marked degree. Except in the case of roasts, browning for flavor is usually accomplished by heating the meat in a frying pan in fat which has been tried out of pork or in suet or butter. Care should be taken that the fat is not scorched. The chief reason for the bad opinion in which fried food is held by many is that it almost always means eating burned fat. When fat is heated too high it splits up into fatty acids and glycerin, and from the glycerin is formed a substance (acrolein) which has a very irritating effect upon the mucous membrane. All will recall that the fumes of scorched fat make the eyes water. It is not surprising that such a substance, if taken into the stomach, should cause digestive disturbance. Fat in itself is a very valuable food, and the objection to fried foods because they may be fat seems illogical. If they supply burned fat there is a good reason for suspicion. Many housekeepers cook bacon in the oven on a wire broiler over a pan and believe it more wholesome than fried bacon. The reason, of course, is that thus cooked in the oven there is less chance for the bacon becoming impregnated with burned fat. Where fried salt pork is much used good cooks know that it must not be cooked over a very hot fire, even if they have never heard of the chemistry of burned fat. The recipe for bean-pot roast and other similar recipes may be varied by browning the meat or part of it before covering with water. This results in keeping some of the natural flavoring within the meat itself and allowing less to go into the gravy. The flavor of veal can be very greatly improved in this way.
The following old-fashioned dishes made with pork owe their savoriness chiefly to the flavor of browned fat or meat:
Cut salt or cured pork into thin slices. If very salt, cover with hot water and allow it to stand for ten minutes. Score the rind of the slices and fry slowly until they are a golden brown. Make a milk gravy by heating flour in the fat that has been tried out, allowing two tablespoonfuls of fat and two tablespoonfuls of flour to each cup of milk. This is a good way to use skim milk, which is as rich in protein as whole milk. The pork and milk gravy served with boiled or baked potatoes makes a cheap and simple meal, but one that most people like very much. Bacon is often used in place of salt pork in making this dish.
1/2 pound salt pork. 1 pound codfish. 2 cups of milk (skim milk will do). 4 tablespoonfuls flour. A speck of salt.
Cut the codfish into strips, soak in lukewarm water and then cook in water until tender, but do not allow the water to come to the boiling point except for a very short time as prolonged boiling may make it tough. Cut the pork into one-fourth inch slices and cut several gashes in each piece. Fry very slowly until golden brown, and remove, pouring off the fat. Out of four tablespoonfuls of the fat, the flour, and the milk make a white sauce. Dish up the codfish with pieces of pork around it and serve with boiled potatoes and beets. Some persons serve the pork, and the fat from it, in a gravy boat so it can be added as relished.
The art of preparing savory gravies and sauces is more important in connection with the serving of the cheaper meats than in connection with the cooking of the more expensive.
There are a few general principles underlying the making of all sauces or gravies whether the liquid used is water, milk, stock, tomato juice, or some combination of these. For ordinary gravy 2 level tablespoonfuls of flour or 1-1/2 tablespoonfuls of cornstarch or arrow root is sufficient to thicken a cupful of liquid. This is true excepting when, as in the recipe on page 23 the flour is browned. In this case about one-half tablespoonful more should be allowed, for browned flour does not thicken so well as unbrowned. The fat used may be butter or the drippings from the meat, the allowance being 2 tablespoonfuls to a cup of liquid.
The easiest way to mix the ingredients is to heat the fat, add the flour, and cook until the mixture ceases to bubble, and then to add the liquid. This is a quick method and by using it there is little danger of getting a lumpy gravy. Many persons, however, think it is not a wholesome method and prefer the old-fashioned one of thickening the gravy by means of flour mixed with a little cold water. The latter method is, of course, not practicable for brown gravies.
The good flavor of browned flour is often overlooked. If flour is cooked in fat until it is a dark brown color a distinctive and very agreeable flavor is obtained. This flavor combines very well with that of currant jelly, and a little jelly added to a brown gravy is a great improvement. The flavor of this should not be combined with that of onions or other highly flavored vegetables. A recipe for a dish which is made with brown sauce follows:
Cut cold mutton into thin slices and heat in a brown sauce, made according to the following proportions:
2 tablespoonfuls butter. 2 tablespoonfuls flour. 1 tablespoonful of bottled meat sauce (whichever is preferred). 1 tablespoonful red-currant jelly. 1 cupful water or stock.
Brown the flour in the butter, add the water or stock slowly, and keep stirring. Then add the jelly and meat sauce and let the mixture boil up well.
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