Beef Creams.

I have a short, simple story for you today. I was browsing one of my favourite old books – the first old household book I ever bought (many decades ago for fifty cents) and came across a recipe I want to share with you. I don’t think it would be out of place in a modern restaurant. The book is The Woman’s Book: Contains Everything a Woman Ought to Know. Household management: cookery: children: home doctor: business: dress: society: careers: citizenship; ed. Florence B. Jack (London, 1911.)  The recipe is for ‘Beef Creams’, which are an entirely different concept from ‘Creamed Beef.’

Beef Creams.

(Fr. Crèmes de Boeuf)

Ingredients:

¾ lb lean juicy Beef.

2 tablesp. whipped Cream

1 dess-sp. chopped Parsley

1 dess-sp. chopped Mushrooms.

Pepper and Salt.

Purée of Spinach or Potato

1 table-sp. Brown Sauce

1 egg.

Panada:

1 gill stock

½ oz. butter

2 oz. flour.

Method: Grease six or seven small entrée moulds, and decorate them at the foot with chopped parsley and mushrooms.

To Prepare the Creams: Remove all skin and fat from the meat, and pass it through the mincing machine. Make a panada with the stock, butter, and flour; put the stock and butter into a saucepan, bring them to the boil, and sprinkle in the flour. Then mix until perfectly smooth, and cook thoroughly. Put this panada into a mortar with the meat, brown sauce, egg, and seasoning. Pound well, and rub all through a wire sieve. Add the cream and the remainder of the parsley and mushrooms. Mix lightly, and fill up the prepared moulds. Place these in a shallow pan or tin lined with a double fold of paper at the foot. Pour in enough boiling water to come half-way up the sides of the moulds, and cover with greased paper. Steam slowly for fifteen minutes, or until the creams feel firm to the touch. Lift them out, and allow them to stand for a minute or two. Then unmould them carefully, and dish on a purée of potato or spinach and pour brown sauce or piquant sauce round.

Quotation for the Day.

An epicure is one who gets nothing better than the cream of everything but cheerfully makes the best of it.

Oliver Herford