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Beef à la Mode

A historical recipe from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree (1878).

A historical recipe

Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree (1878). Project Gutenberg eBook #42450.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree (1878). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #42450 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42450). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

United States. Associated with United States by the book is about Virginian cookery (Cooking, American -- Southern style); the recipe itself names no place (confidence 0.4). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. Take a round or a rump piece of beef, take out the bone, the gristle and all the tough pieces about the edges.
  2. Fill the cavities from which the bone was taken, with suet, and fat salt pork.
  3. Press this so as to make it perfectly round, pass around a coarse, strong piece of cloth, so as to hold it firmly in shape.
  4. If the round is six inches thick, the cloth must be six inches wide, leaving the top and bottom open.
  5. With a larding needle, fill this thickly with strips of fat pork, running through from top to bottom and about one inch apart each way.
  6. Set this in a baking-pan, pour over: 1 teacup boiling water, 1 teacup boiling vinegar;
  7. mixed.
  8. Add to this one heaping tablespoonful brown sugar and a bunch of herbs.
  9. Sprinkle over the beef liberally with salt and black pepper;
  10. chop one small onion fine, and lay over top of the beef.
  11. Simmer this for two or three hours, basting frequently and keeping an inverted tin plate over the beef except when basting.
  12. If the gravy stews down too much, add stock or broth of any kind.
  13. Turn it over, and let the top be at the bottom.
  14. When it is done and tender, skim the fat from the gravy.
  15. Pour over: 2 tablespoonfuls celery vinegar.
  16. 2 tablespoonfuls pepper.
  17. 2 tablespoonfuls made mustard.
  18. 1 wineglassful acid fruit jelly.
  19. Simmer and bake for two hours longer, frequently basting, that it may be soft and seasoned through and through.
  20. Take the beef from the pan and remove the cloth;
  21. place in a large flat dish, pour over the gravy, and over this one teacup of mushroom sauce.
  22. Sift finely powdered cracker over the top and garnish with grated or scraped horseradish and parsley.--Mrs.
  23. S.
  24. T.