From Digby, pg 196: TO STEW A RUMP OF BEEF
"Take a rump of Beef, break all the bones; season it with Pepper and Salt to your liking; Take three or four Nutmegs, and a quantity of Mace, beat them grossly; Then take a bunch of very good sweet herbs, and one good Onion cut in quarters, or Garlike, as you like it. Put in half a pint of White-wine Vinegar, and one pint of good Claret, one handful of Sugar; and a piece or two of beef suet or Butter; shred some cabbage under and over, and scrape in a pound of good old cheese. Put all these into an earthen pot, and let it stand in an oven with brown bread four or five hours; but let the pot be covered close with paste."
From Digby, pg 208: TO BAKE BEEF
"Bone it, and beat it exceedingly well on all sides, with a roling pin, upon a table. Then season it with Pepper and Salt, (rubbing them in very well) and some Parsley, and a few sweet herbs (Penny-royal, Winter-savoury, Sweet-majoram, Limon Thyme, Red-Sage, which yet to some seems to have a physical taste) an Onion if you will. Squeese it into the pot as close as you can. Put Butter upon it, and Claret-wine, and covered all as above. Bake it in a strong oven eight or ten hours. Take it out of the oven, and the meat out of the pot, which make clean, from all settlings; and squeese all the juyce from it (even by a gentle press.) Then put it in again hard pressed into the pot. Clarifie the Butter, that you poured with the Liquor from the meat out of the pot; and pour it again with more flesh, to have enough to cover it two or three fingers thick"
- large chuck roast
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon mace
- basil, parsley, marjoram
- large onion
- 1/2 pint white vinegar
- 1 pint red wine
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup beef fat
- 2 cups shredded cabbage
Instead of a sealed earthen pot, I use a slow-cooker. Place frozen beef in slow cooker and set to 10 hours. It doesn't need to be in that long, but I wanted it to cook slowly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle in nutmeg, mace, fresh parsley, and majoram. Like most SCA chefs, I have a variety of vinegars. I stirred one cup of sugar into half a pint of basil vinegar and one pint of red wine, and added it to the pot. Having recently bought an entire cow's worth of beef, I had lots of beef fat on hand. :) I broke up the beef fat by hand, sprinkled it in, diced two cups of cabbage and added them to the wine sauce. The cabbage absorbed the excess vinegar nicely. If you're making this without the cabbage, cut back on the vinegar. Lacking cheese, I did without.
I served it at a shire potluck. The beef was good, but was difficult to cut in the slow-cooker. Next time, I'll take the beef out after it has cooked awhile, cut it up, and put it back in the cooker for guests to serve themselves.