A guide to modern cookery

Leave the whole to cook gently for three hours. Dish the steak, and surround it with the onions and the braising-liquor cleared of all grease and reduced. 1165—SALT BEEF The pieces of beef chiefly selected for salting are brisket, silver side, and round of beef, and these are always boiled for a more or less lengthy period, according to their size. To the cooking-liquor is added a copious garnish of carrots and turnips. These are served with the meat, together with a sauceboat of cooking-liquor and a suet dumpling, prepared as follows :— 1166—SUET DUMPLING Finely chop up some suet; add to it an equal quantity of flour and about one-quarter oz. of salt per lb. of suet and flour. Moisten with just enough water to make a thick paste of about the same consistence as brioche-paste. Cut this paste into portions weighing about one oz., and roll them into small balls. Put the latter in a sautépan containing some boiling beef cooking-liquor, which need not have been cleared of grease, and let them poach for one and one-half hours. Now drain the dumplings, and arrange them around the meat with the garnish of carrots and turnips, as explained above. 1167—COLD SALT BEER Salt beef, served cold, constitutes an excellent sideboard dish for luncheons. It need only be neatly trimmed all round, care being taken to preserve all the fat so highly esteemed by some. Indeed, a piece of cold salt fat is sometimes added to that already existing around and in the meat, in which case the extra quantity is fixed to the beef by means of a hatelet. 1168—PRESSED BEEF Salt beef also serves in the preparation of ‘‘ Pressed Beef,”’ but, for this purpose, the breast is generally used. After having thoroughly cooked the salted breast of beef in accordance with the procedure indicated for salt beef, cut it into large pieces of the same size as the moulds into which the meat is going to be pressed. Lay the pieces of beef one on top of another in a square or rectangular mould, and cover with a thick board, cut flush with the inside edge of the mopld. Now apply pressure, either by means of a strong press or heavy weight, and leave the beef to cool under the applied pressure. When the meat is quite cold, turn it out; trim it carefully on all sides, and glaze it, t.e., cover it entirely with a coating of rather firm, clarified gelatine, brought by means of carmine end caramel to a nice red-brown colour. 1169—STEAK AND KIDNEY PUDDING Cut three Ibs. of very lean beef into slices one-third inch thick. Season these slices with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and add a little chopped onion and parsley. Take a pudding-basin; line it with a firm layer of suet-dough (No. 1166), and garnish the bottom and sides of the basin with the slices of beef. In the middle put one ib. of kidney of beef, of veal, or of mutton, cut up as for tossing, and seasoned like the steaks. Moisten with just sufficient water to cover. Now close up the basin with a layer of the same paste as that used in lining, pinching it with the latter, all round, that it may adhere thoroughly. In order to effect this with greater CC 2 certainty, the respective edges of the two layers of paste may be moistened. This done, cover the basin with a buttered and dredged napkin, fastened on by means of string tied round just beneath the lip of the utensil. Cook for five hours, either in boiling water or in steam, and, after having removed the napkin, serve the pudding as it stands. 1170—_STEAK PUDDING Make some rather stiff paste with two lbs. of flour, one and one-quarter lbs. of the chopped fat of kidney of beef, a pinch of salt, and one-quarter pint of water. With the rolling-pin, roll out this paste to a round layer one-quarter inch thick, and put it into a buttered dome-mould or pudding-basin.