Skip to main content
Main

2. Roast of Beef.

Roast of Beef is a roasted beef prepared with melted fat, water, salt, and flour, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

2. Roast of Beef.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roast

  1. Wipe roast with a damp cloth.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and dredge with flour.

  3. Place in a roasting pan, fat side up if it is a standing roast.

Roast

  1. Put the roast in a very hot oven and after fifteen minutes reduce the heat.

  2. Baste roast two or three times with the fat that tries out during cooking.

  3. The usual allowance of time for a medium rare roast is fifteen minutes for every pound of meat.

Make the gravy

  1. After the roast has been taken from the pan, pour out all but 1-1/2 tablespoonfuls of the melted fat.

  2. Stir in 1 heaping tablespoonful of flour and brown very slightly.

  3. Add one cup of cold water and stir constantly until thickened.

  4. Add 1/2 teaspoonful salt.

  5. Strain.

By Helen Kinne and Anna M. Cooley. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Roast beef (in the method)
Provides the main meat, which is cooked by dry heat until done to the chosen doneness.
Melted fat
Carries flavor and browns the flour, and is basted over the roast to keep the surface moist.
Flour
Dredged on the roast and browned in the fat, then thickens the gravy as it cooks with the liquid.
Cold water
Mixed with the browned flour and fat to form a thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and brown it slightly. Cooking flour in hot fat lets it toast lightly and develop flavor, and it must be stirred into the fat before the water goes in so it thickens smoothly without lumps.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More roast beef recipes

Cold Fricassee 21Fillet 16with Yorkshire Pudding 15Pie 14Steak 10Pot 9 See all 303 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes