Take a round of beef; remove the bone from the middle, and trim away
the tougher bits about the edges, with such gristle, &c., as you can
reach. Set these aside for soup-stock.
Bind the beef into a symmetrical shape by passing a strip of stout
muslin, as wide as the round is high, about it, and stitching the
ends together at one side. Have ready at least a pound of fat salt
pork, cut into strips as thick as your middle finger, and long enough
to reach from top to bottom of the trussed round. Put a half pint of
vinegar over the fire in a tin or porcelain saucepan; season with
three or four minced shallots or button onions, two teaspoonfuls made
mustard, a teaspoonful nutmeg, one of cloves, half as much allspice,
half-spoonful black pepper, with a bunch of sweet herbs minced fine,
and a tablespoonful brown sugar. Let all simmer for five minutes, then
boil up once, and pour, while scalding hot, upon the strips of pork,
which should be laid in a deep dish. Let all stand together until
cold. Remove the pork to a plate, and mix with the liquor left in the
dish enough bread-crumbs to make a tolerably stiff force-meat. If the
vinegar is very strong, dilute with a little water before moistening
the crumbs. With a long, thin-bladed knife, make perpendicular
incisions in the meat, not more than half an inch apart, even nearer is
better; thrust into these the strips of fat pork, so far down that the
upper ends are just level with the surface, and work into the cavities
with them a little of the force-meat. Proceed thus until the meat is
fairly riddled and plugged with the pork. Fill the hole from which the
bone was taken with the dressing and bits of pork; rub the upper side
of the beef well with the spiced force-meat. Put into a baking-pan;
half-fill this with boiling water; turn a large pan over it to keep
in the steam, and roast slowly for five or six hours, allowing half
an hour to each pound of meat. If the beef be tough, you had better
stew the round by putting it in a pot with half enough cold water to
cover it. Cover tightly and stew very slowly for six hours; then set
in the oven with the gravy about it, and brown half an hour, basting
frequently.
If you roast the round, do not remove the cover, except to baste (and
this should be done often), until fifteen minutes before you draw it
from the oven. Set away with the muslin band still about it, and pour
the gravy over the meat.
When cold, lift from the gravy,—which, by the way, will be excellent
seasoning for your soup-stock,—cut the stitches in the muslin girdle,
remove carefully and send the meat to table, cold, garnished with
parsley and nasturtium blossoms. Carve horizontally, in slices thin
as a shaving. Do not offer the outside to any one; but the second cut
will be handsomely marbled with the white pork, which appearance should
continue all the way down.
I cannot too highly commend this as a side-dish at dinner, and a supper
and breakfast stand-by. In winter it will keep a week and more, and as
long in summer, if kept in the refrigerator—except when it is on the
table.