Roast Beef Over an Open Fire! - 18th Century Cooking

In this episode we're doing a simple recipe but  I believe it's going to be very delicious this   one's right out of the Amelia Simmons's  "American Cookery" cookbook roast beef so technically this is the first recipe in this  recipe book all everything else is before it is   instruction about how to choose foods but recipe  number one is "to roast beef" let me read this to   you it's pretty simple "the general rules are to  have a brisk hot fire to hang down rather than to   spit to baste with salt and water and 1/4 of an  hour to every pound of beef though tender beef   will require less time while old tough beef will  require more roasting pricking with a fork will   determine whether you whether it's done or not  rare done is the healthiest and the taste of this   age" now I thought this recipe is very interesting  if you check a lot of recipe books especially the   English recipe books in the 18th century not that  many of them actually have roast beef recipes most   of the time it's either roasting other meats or  doing different things with beef now either that's   because roast beef was so common that they didn't  think that you needed directions or the beef of   that time period was too tough to roast I'm not  sure which one is true I'm guessing the latter   rather than the former but we'll find out I've  got a simple sort of round roast here and we're   gonna try roasting it over the open fire so she  calls a for hanging this not putting it on a spit   so I'm gonna go ahead and tie this up with some  cordage I've got here I want to make sure that   in the end this fat cap ends up on top at least at  the beginning of the cooking process so the fats   go down through the meat and we don't lose that  so we want to make sure that this ends up on top okay so that looks like that's gonna hang really  well like that so let me get this knot kind of   tied off as long as our cord doesn't burn through  we'll be doing great let's go ahead and rig this   up by the fire okay you can see I've already  set up the hearth kind of special with this I   thought I would try to decrease the cooking time  a little bit by bringing in a reflector oven now   this reflector oven is made to work with a spit  but I'm gonna experiment see if I can get it to   work with the hanging piece of meat here I've  tilted it up with a couple of fire bricks up in   front kind of tilt it up a little bit and so I can  hang the meat down in front and still catch the   drippings but it reflects this heat so we don't  lose all that backside heat and I'll probably   have to experiment with the fire a little bit here  you can see let's go ahead and hang this and get   it started so here is our piece of beef here and  hopefully I'll continue to experiment and get that   just right there we go now she calls for a high  brisk fire and that's why I brought these this   fire you can see I've kind of raised it up on top  of fire bricks so that not all of the heat kind   of goes in uh you know from the bottom but we're  kind of trying to get some side heat on this so   we actually you know every kind of fireplace or  every kind of open fire pit you're gonna have to   do your own little experimenting about how you can  get this fire to not be basically underneath it   but get the meat beside this so I'll continue  to experiment with this and I also have to be   ready as this starts to cook up to baste it with  basically saltwater what she calls for so water   and salt some of those later some of those earlier  sorry English ones have some other bastings that   come in to this when you roast beef in this  manner but those kind of fancy basting come   in at the very end of the cooking so and this  one's just very simple it's just salt and water   so that's what we're gonna get going so we want  to come back to this every so often this isn't   something you really want to leave go too much  all by itself but we want to stay here we want   to you know keep it spinning every minute or so  we come in here and spin this if we need to we   can you know pick this up change the loop around  so that the other side kind of stays if we're not   gonna spin it a lot and continue to tend the fire  so that we'd have a nice clear bright flames that   are sort of beside it again that's what we're  trying and of course we have to keep basting   this thing too we don't want it to dry out so it  isn't something that you leave behind in fact if   you watch if you look at the paintings sometimes  there'll be a little boy by the fire who's   continuing to either crank the spit or you know  attend these things as they're cooking so they   almost always have somebody that's continually  tending these again remember the timing on this   she said that's about 15 minutes per pound this  guy is running I don't know probably two and a   half three pounds so it should take half hour  45 minutes we might shrink the time by having   this reflector oven you know as thick as I'm  thinking this piece of meat is I'm worried   that it's gonna take a little longer so you know  we'll just see how it turns out I mean again this   is an experiment I've never done one quite like  this so I'll cook it until I feel like it's done okay well let's see how this has done I have  been looks like about about an hour and a half   cooking this it's taking a lot longer actually  I think I was too far away from the fire at   the beginning so it took a lot longer although if  you read some of the other directions like Hannah   Glass she says to start out farther away from  the fire then when it starts to look done you   bring it closer and speed up the cooking which is  exactly what I ended up doing maybe by accident   but that's what I ended up doing yeah Amelia  Simmons says to try this out by putting a fork   into the flesh and seeing what kind of fluids  come out she doesn't you know go into a whole   lot of detail but you know when I press the fork  deep into the center of this I'm getting mostly   clear fluid so I think we're doing pretty good  still might be a little probably pretty rare   in the middle but of course Amelia Simmons  says that's the healthiest and the taste   of the age so I think I'm gonna go ahead and  slice a piece off of this see how it turns out Wow you know you could start to tell when this  was getting done when the you know really comes   up with the smell that you're you know really  salivating for and this really really turned   out well it looks so wonderful smells great and  you know I cut into it and it's still you know   a little rare in the middle but nice and cooked  it's still a little pink for a nice big piece of   meat like that I think that turned out pretty much  perfect I couldn't have done it I couldn't guessed   any better so it's time to try this out and I  I went ahead and put a little mushroom ketchup   on it just because I mean that's the thing  for these kinds of things mushroom ketchup   although I probably didn't need to this was  gonna be so good without it but I had to do   it because mushroom ketchup is so great so let  me cut up a little bit here and we'll try it out amazing texture and wonderful smoky flavor along  with the mushroom ketchup just excellent just   like you know you really expect it to be with  this wonderful roast beef over the open fire   you know hung and spun and basted with the the  salt water and wonderful wonderful flavors if   you get a chance to do an open fire roast beef  like this especially at an event where you can   kind of watch it and keep it going take some  time with it you know don't try to cook it too   fast it's one of those things you really just  have to give it a lot of time and wow just so   wonderful excellent flavors everyone will talk  about this for you know months to come if you   make one of these at an event or even home for  that matter such wonderful flavors and right out   of Amelia Simmons's cookbook 1796 that's an  American cookbook she does quick simple easy   directions for this and turned out great there  are more complex ones if you go back and look   at the English cookbooks and they get all fancy  but Amelia Simmons is like no it's not that tough   let's let's do it simple so wow this one has such  a wonderful recipe I hope you get a chance to try   it really do if you get a chance I really want to  thank you for all your amazing support you come   along you watch the videos you comment on them  you share the videos that's how people find this   channel you sharing the videos so thank you so  much for that and we also get support from folks   on Patreon or folks that go over to our website  and purchase things from our merch store that is   so important it helps us do continue to do these  videos so thank you so much for all your amazing   support thanks for coming along as we savor  the flavors and the aromas of the 18th century

Channel: Townsends

Views: 1,496,123

Keywords: 18 century cooking, 18th century, 18th century cooking, 19th century, bbq, beef, campfire, colonial cooking, cooking, cooking over fire, fire, food, historical cooking, history, jas townsend and son, jon townsend, open, open fire cooking, reenacting, roast, roast beef, roasting (culinary technique), townsend, townsends

Id: OGS4BY7KjTM

Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2017