Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/97

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After reading the foregoing observations, the cook must gain, by observation and practice, that experience which will enable her to send this very best of joints to table, done enough, yet not overdone. A piece of 15 lbs. weight will require nearly four hours to cook it well: cover it with two half sheets of foolscap paper, and put it near to the fire for a few minutes; then rub it well over with butter, and draw it back to a distance (provided always that there is a very good, steady fire); and in this case do not baste at all, but put some boiling water into the dripping-pan when you first put the meat down, and this, by the time the meat is done, will be good gravy, after you have poured the fat off. The older fashion is to baste with dripping as soon as you put it down, and continue the basting every quarter of an hour; but I think the other method gives the meat the most delicate taste and appearance. However, a cook should try both ways, and afterwards follow the one which best suits the taste of her employers.

The old fashion of Yorkshire pudding with roast beef is too good a one to be abandoned, though its substitute of potatoe pudding is not to be rejected. Garnish with finely scraped horseradish.—Where cold roast beef is not liked, or if too underdone to eat cold, slices may be gently simmered over the fire in gravy or broth, or a very little water, and a little pepper and salt, eschalot vinegar, or some sort of catsup. The sirloin always came to table whole in the house in which I was brought up; therefore, I am able to give instructions for cooking it. No spit will carry round a whole sirloin; it must be dangled, and one which weighs (after great part of the suet has been taken out) 40 lbs. will roast in five hours, for it is no thicker than a piece of 10 lbs. weight. The fire must be large and high, the heat, of course, very great. Many a cook's complexion, to say nothing of her temper, has suffered in the cause of our "noble sirloins." If the inside, or tender-loin, be taken out leaving all the fat to roast with the joint, this part may be cooked to resemble hare. For this purpose, spread some hare stuffing over the beef, roll that up tightly with tape, and tie it on the spit. Send this to table with the sauces for roast hare. When the whole joint is roasted, the inside