The genisis for digging up this old cookbook and preparing a dish came from Meg at I Heart Bacon. She’s hosting a Virtual 40’s-70’s Party, neat huh? In true Biggles tradition, I found a cookbook I liked from 1909, not anywhere close to the 1940s or the 1970s. This is how I follow directions, only to a point. I opened it up right to the meat section and found something that interested me, Steak à la Bordelaise. I read through the ingredients and in typical boy fashion, figured I knew how it all went together. The way I figured, the steak was to simmer in the sauce, nope. I had it wrong, a good wrong though.
A little backtracking if I may? After deciding on the recipe, I leafed through the book just to see what the scoop was. I inherited the book from my grandmother a million years ago. Sure I’ve glanced at it, but never sat down for an hour or more and poured through it. Turns out it’s two books, Household Discoveries & Mrs. Curtis’s Cook Book. It was published by Success Company and not available in stores, only through salespeople & directly from the publisher. In one of the opening pages they even offer to pay the general public One Cent a Word for anything submitted and used. I thought that was pretty nice of them, eh? As near as I can tell, this book would have been given to a woman who was young enough to not have the skill set to manage a home, yet. The chapters are quite complete, it starts out with House Furnishing and Decorating, goes through Heating, Lighting and Refrigeration. There’s a chapter that describes what you should be doing throughout the day and exactly when to do it. There are chapters that spell out what each day should be about, Soap Making Day, Wash Day (blech), Ironing Day (a whole day?), Sewing and Mending Day, oh and my favorite Sweeping Day !!! The chapters go on for 744 pages, that’s a fair amount just so you know. There are a few really gorgeous color prints, but mostly funky black type.
The second book is the cookbook, Mrs. Curtis’s Cookbook. I wonder what her first name is? The more I read, the more in love with this book I become. The detail these people went in to, the time it took to make sure EVERYTHING was done perfectly is amazing. I like the part where instead of tsp or TBLS, they use teaspoonful and tablespoonful. I’m going to do that on Meathenge from now on, I call it first!
The Steak à la Bordelaise looked simple with just a few ingredients. In fact, most of the recipes are like that. Remember, in 1909 you were had to buy local and really driven by the seasons. Most people used ice for refrigeration or bought fresh each day. What a concept, doesn’t sound too bad to me. Unless you run out of ice, then it would really suck. The recipe right above was something called Hamburg Steak. Hey, that sounds familiar. Check this out:
Hamburg Steak (yes, I’ll get to the recipe I cooked soon enough, shaddup)
Two pounds round beef chopped fine; press it into a flat steak, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a little onion juice (very cool); flour lightly, and broil as beefsteak. Make a brown gravy with a little soup stock, thicken with flour, and pour around the steak.
I’ll save this recipe for the weekend. Okay, finally I’ll shut up and send forth the recipe in question.
Steak à la Bordelaise
1 sirloin steak
2 tablespoonfuls butter
2 tablespoonfuls flour
2 cupfuls beef stock
2 tablespoonfuls chopped raw ham (I used bacon)
1/2 bay leaf (fussy French)
1 tablespoonful tomato catsup (I used ketchup)
Salt & Pepper to taste
1/2 cupful finely chopped mushrooms
Brown the butter and flour, stir in the stock; when thick and smooth, add the ham, bay leaf, and onion. Cover and simmer gently for an hour, then strain. Add salt, pepper, catsup, and mushrooms, and keep hot at the side of the fire (I just let it rest to the side, I don’t have a fire). Broil a sirloin steak, arrange on a hot platter, and pour this sauce around it.
Yeah, okay when I first read it I thought the steak would have been cooked in the sauce. NO !
The prep time was barely 15 minutes. The cook time was probably about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Instead of broiling the steak, I opted for a high heat pan sear in a cast iron pan, kerPOW.
The sauce was so smooth, so rich and flavorful. The smoky pork along with the reduced beef stock was a perfect match. Even a day later Mama was remarking to a friend how good it tasted.
I think if I redid this, I would add a splash of red wine or juice from half a lemon. Other than that, this was a wonderful meal.
Biggles
just the other day i was wondering if hamburgers were of german origin. onion juice – splendid!
i bet there aren’t too many recipes in mrs. curtis’s cookbook suggesting the use of wine. i think the splash of red wine would add a nice touch.
Traditionally, I believe Bordelaise has wine in it, wonder if prohibition had anything to do with the omition of wine. 1909 is too early, but I’ll bet it was in the works and maybe the publisher saw it coming, or could have been a very Christian publisher. Check this out:
http://www.prohibition.org/
that’s classic! take away the “prohibition”part, and it sounds like a baptist convention.
Dude, you were off by 31 years at least! What a bad boy.
I love old cookbooks. Have some fun http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/ here.
Ew, and speaking of (or looking at) green beans and old recipes, I made that damn green bean casserole for Thanksgiving about 15 years ago, the one with canned soup and canned fried onions. Gasp! Salt on a Ritz! Yick.
At long last! Your Bordelaise recipe…Sounds so rich and savory. But I would add some wine too. I’d never make it as a ‘teetotaler’ chef. Lately, I’ve been adding white wine to my meat sauces instead of red, since I think it makes for better color. Maybe I’m not doing it right, but if you add red wine to a roux, it turns a weird shade of puce (which is just one letter away from another word for barf). Red is great for deglazing a pan, to make those nice rich, dark sauces. But anything with a lot of flour and liquid just doesn’t look good with red wine in it. So I add white, which produces a similar effect in terms of flavor, but the color is much more presentable.
Years ago, I used to keep company with a very talented winemaker/oenological chemist who was always hosting wine tastings and once told me that if you serve wine in blue glasses under an ultraviolet light, most people can’t tell the difference between red and white wine. I’ve never put that challenge to the test, but I still can’t believe it’s true. Anyone ever heard that?
Of course anything experienced through a haze of blue glass and black lights is bound to throw off your perception a little.
Hey Cookie,
Canned fried onions, that’s not good. I don’t like that … well maybe in a casserole. No, not even then, I just thought about it.
Hey Celeste,
Uh, if you’re drinking or eating under an ultraviolet light, you’re not on this planet. Or is this just a test? Couldn’t you just blindfold the person?
I got a ultraviolet light. I got some White Mountain Goofy, should try.
Biggles
This is from a 1894 recipe database I have called:
RECIPES TRIED AND TRUE.- COMPILED BY THE LADIES’ AID SOCIETY OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, MARION, OHIO.
I love this one:
TO FRY STEAK. MRS. H. T. VAN FLEET.
Have a nice tenderloin or porterhouse steak, one inch and half in thickness, well hacked. Over this sprinkle salt, pepper, and a little flour.
Have ready a very hot spider. Into this drop plenty of good, sweet butter (a quarter of a pound is not too much); when thoroughly melted, lay in the meat; turn frequently.
While cooking, make many openings in the steak to allow the butter to pass through. When done, place on a hot platter and serve immediately.
Hey P. Chef, what’s a spider?
I won’t be able to respond because I’m in the kitchen wacking my steaks and applying gobs of butter with the fry situation.
Man, that sounds GREAT. When are you going to do it?
Biggles
And you’re right about a traditional Bordelaise having wine in it because the name refers to Bordeaux.
Big red wine reduction, veal demi, shallots, parsley, love. Good stuff.
A spider is an old fashioned skillet, kinda like a frying pan/wok with long ‘spider’ legs that was meant to use over a fire in a hearth.
There was also a salamander too, that was a long rod bent into an S shape (like a salamander) that kind of worked like a branding iron for searing. That’s where the modern overhead restaurant broilers called salamanders got their name.
If I can dig up some pictures, maybe I’ll post on it tomorrow.
Hey P. Chef,
I like how you know stuff.
One of the reasons I’d attend cheffin’ school. But I don’t do well in a structured environment. But you probably already figured that.
I’m getting there.
Biggles
I’m blushin’. Seriously though, there’s so much you can learn on the ‘Net and by watching that channel on TV with all the pretty cooks who talk about the same things over and over. Getting my butt kicked in a restaurant kitchen the first time changed my life.
I’m definitely not the structured school type either, which is why I really dug ACI. Short and sweet program with some really inspiring chefs.
And I’d say that your instincts are as good as anyone I know anyways! I mean, I have to put on a frickin’ bib when I know I’m coming over here.
I’m blushin’ too, cuz I know what a spider is. And a salamander. When I was a copy editor for a food section, I once had to teach the staff what a bain marie was, and also explain to them why Alice Waters calls arugula “rocket.” (In Italian, it’s ruccola.) Oh god — lah-di-dah, eh?
Hey Cookie,
Yup, got all the references but the spider. And I’ve been down the old fashioned skillet path before. Dang, an junk.
Dr. Biggles, I loved the description of the first book! I find those old how-to books just fascinating!!
Oh and the recipe sounds great too…definitely going to have to try it. With the wine, of course.
That book sounds classic, and I should probably find a copy of my own. I currently do blogging day and playing with the kids outside day… haven’t heard or mastered any of the other days! 🙂
Hey Everyone!
Sorry I haven’t been by to respond to your Comments. It’s been terribly busy around here and my To Do List isn’t getting any shorter.
Thanks to everyone!
Boy, wait until you read and see the BBQ Joint crawl I did on Saturday, hooboy.
Biggles
Biggles,
That looks incredible. I want to eat it NOW! Plus it sounds kind of fun to make. I’ll have to try it out.
I love the cookbook–the spine is so beautifully tacky!! I agree with you on the ironing. A whole day is just insane. Like torture. I hate it so much that I refuse to buy any clothing that requires ironing.
I love old cookbooks. My collection tends to run toward out of print Chinese cookbooks in English, but I have quite a few older American cookbooks, too.
I love how 1/4 cup of butter “isn’t too much” to cook a steak in! WOW! That has got to be super rich!
About red wine in sauces–the red color comes from anthocyanin–and is removed by heat. So, if you make a reduction sauce, where you boil off the alcohol and then reduce the volume of water, most of the anthocyanin is cooked out. When you add wine to a sauce and then add roux–you haven’t cooked it long enough to get all of the purple/red color out of it, and so you end up with that puce color that is not so appetizing in a sauce.
The solution–you can use white wines, but I like the flavors of some red wines with beef particularly. They are richer. So, you add the wine early in the cooking process and let it reduce very well before you add the roux or burre manie in order to thicken it.
Hey Barbara,
Thank you so much for that fancy solution.
1/4 cup of butter, heh. I’ve got a cookbook from our local library from 1955. My grandmother worked there back then and all the librarians pitched in a recipe or three. I remember one recipe called for using either oil or lard in the pan before you brown your hamburger. Shudder.
Biggles