Boiled Beef & Comments on Making Stock |
|
beef bones When properly made, boiled beef, a staple of Viennese cooking, is a truly delicious dish. It is best made in the process of making beef stock or soup, keeping mind the classical dictum: From a piece of meat you can make good meat or good soup, but not both. Make beef stock by slowly simmering (covered) lots of marrow bones (sold on-island as 'dog bones'), shin meat and/or oxtails and or other cuts of very cheap beef. When it starts to simmer, skim all the brown foam off and then add onions, carrots and celery [the customary ratio is for the total weight of carrots and celery combined to equal the weight of onion] (parsley, root vegetables and/or mushrooms are optional) for a day to make a good beef stock. (What to do with the stock after you have made the boiled beef is discussed below.) After the stock has simmered, covered, for 24 hours or more, and about 3 hrs before dinner time, put the cut of meat you are serving into the stock pot together with one or two particularly pretty raw marrow bones wrapped in a piece of cheese cloth. Let the meat simmer in the stockpot until it is very tender to a fork - about 3 hours, depending on the toughness of the cut and its thickness. It should almost - but not quite - be falling apart. Carefully remove the meat to a platter, surround it by the marrow bones which have been uwrapped, and serve with breadcrumbed pasta or boiled potatoes, and horse radish mixed with heavy cream. Note: To simplify matters, the meat can be cooked in commercial demi-glace mixed with water, or, in desperation, canned beef broth. Any leftovers can be put back into the stock pot and simmered, covered, for another day. Leaving the cover on (to insure sterility), turn off the heat without raising the cover and let the pot come to a temperature at which it can be handled. Carefully remove the solid matter with a slotted spoon, letting as much liquid as possible drain back into the pot. At this point it is essential that all the fat floating on the surface of the stock be removed. The easiest way, if you have the space or it is cold outside, is to chill the stock so that the fat hardens. Alternatively, much of it can be removed with the careful use of a ladle to skim the stock, finishing the task by using a gravy separator (the kind with a spout from the bottom that leaves the fat behind). Now put the defatted stock over high heat to reduce the volume as quickly as possible. Remove scum on top as stock begins to simmer and throughout the reduction process. Continue boiling until the quality of the boil changes from localized large bubbles to a uniform layer of small bubbles all over the surface. Dissolve Knox plain gelatin in cold water, following instructions on the package, and add to stock. Continue boiling until it is dissolved, stirring occasionally. Cool stock by setting pot into a cold water bath (in the sink?) then pour into a suitable size container and refrigerate overnight. The next day, spoon heaped tablespoons of the jellied stock onto a cookie sheet covered with Saran and put into freezer. When solidly frozen, wrap individually in pieces of Saran, put into Ziplock freezer bags and store in freezer. Use these 'cubes' as you would demi-glace, bouillon cubes, or stock (when dissolved in water). You will wonder how you ever made sauces, soups, etc., without them. |
|
|
|
|