Salisbury Steaks

Dr. James H. Salisbury, an American physician, born in Scott, NY (1823-1905), wrote  'The Relation of Alimentation and Disease' as an early nutritionist. Salisbury believed our health was determined by the food put into it, so he designed a special food and diet for his patients suffering from anemia, tuberculosis, colitis, gout, rheumatism, arteriosclerosis and asthma. During the American Civil War, Salisbury a war doctor for Union camps in Ohio, and while he was there, he came up with these minced beef patties to help Civil War soldiers' dealing with "camp diarrhea."

Here is Dr. Salisbury’s 'recipe':

"Eat the muscle pulp of lean beef made into cakes and broiled. This pulp should be as free as possible from connective or glue tissue, fat and cartilage.....The pulp should not be pressed too firmly together before broiling, or it will taste livery. Simply press it sufficiently to hold it together. Make the cakes from half an inch to an inch thick. Broil slowly and moderately well over a fire free from blaze and smoke. When cooked, put it on a hot plate and season to taste with butter, pepper, salt; also use either Worcestershire or Halford sauce, mustard, horseradish or lemon juice on the meat if desired."

Well now, I always assumed they were made by a nice English woman in Salisbury UK! 

Ah well, now we both know the truth of it.

I like mine with gravy and onions and mushrooms and love, thanks. And the idea of calling them "meat cakes" kinda grosses me out a little bit.  But thank you, Mr. Salisbury for your wonderful idea...and thanks to all the chefs that changed it up over the years and have made it into a common American family alongside Meatloaf, Macaroni & Cheese, and Baked Beans.

I serve mine with real mashed potatoes, and green beans from a can that have simmered with a slab of bacon for at least an hour, if not longer.  I have to take shortcuts somewhere or I'll spend far too many hours in the kitchen!

Ground sirloin is your best bet, unless you are feeling poor that week, then its a cheaper mince - this means I sop up as much of that fatty mess as possible with paper towels... which probably will cost more than the difference between ground chuck and sirloin...  >shrug<  I'll remember that next time.

This most recent time, I used some Ritz crackers instead of breadcrumbs and didn't add any sat at all - tasted great as usual.

ground beeft - 2.25lbs
2 large eggs
1 sleeve of Ritz crackers crushed
chopped and cooked sweet onion, mushrooms and garlic, cooled  - 1 cup each of onion and mushrooms, and a tablespoon of garlic
black pepper
dried parsley and thyme, teaspoon of each
1/2 tsp horseradish mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix, and form into patties - 6- , cook on Med-hi until both sides are nice and brown, remove from pan.

Saute sliced mushrooms until a bit cooked, then add 2 packages of beef gravy mix mixed with a carton of beef stock, mix and put the meat back in and simmer well for 20 minutes or so.

eat.
yum.

Eat well!
Jen

The Pasty

You can't call them Cornish if they aren't from Cornwall!

   Ahhh, I would be proud to serve this to any meat-eating Brit, and with a bit of change - even could feed a veggie.  My housemate and best friend tells me that I've tried to make these before, but I really don't remember trying.  This time it was perfect filling, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the dough.  I used refrigerated pie dough, and one full crust per pasty, and it was HUGE and the dough just wasn't good enough for me. I really want to experiment more with the dough, I am very good at working with pizza dough and making calzones amd strombolis, so this wasn't too much different, except that there is TONS of filling in these bad boys, so there must be some reductions of things, and the dough needs to be a bit thicker, besides the texture. In the videos I will mention later, they show the texture of the dough i should be using, and this is by mixing lard and margarine (surprisingly not butter) with the dry ingredients.

 Now eating it was a delight, the pie doughs' taste was perfect with its rooty guts, reminding me of a chicken pot pie, but beefy and drier, (i.e. no gravy), but it was moist in its own juices - which was beautiful, really.

The potatoes remained potatoes, the carrots were carrot-y and sweet, the rutabaga was perfect in its -yam-carrot-potato-ness.  I want to start trying new recipes with rutabaga/swede/turnip, it was far yummier than I expected.

   I used a sirloin tip steak, and it worked just fine.  Traditionally, they are made with a skirt steak...but I would think any cut that's fairly tender when cooked fairly quickly (sirloin anything, and other steak cuts.) A few baking potatoes, a rutabaga, handful of carrots, sweet onion, salt, a knob of butter, and a pepper melange (black, pink, green and white peppercorns) are all that's inside these little fatties.  Now, I followed tradition - onions, potatoes, -season-, rutabaga, carrots, -season-, meat, -season-  Its important to season every layer, they say.... but when eating it, I found that because the meat was on the very top, it was a bit dry.  Next time, I think I will have to either make them a bit tighter so the meat is up against the top dough for more of the cooking, or place a different item on top, or perhaps mix it all together as my BFF suggested.    

   I think my eldest son said that they would have been even better with gravy, but then again, he would put gravy on anything he could...

   I cooked them at 375 for an hour, they could have been pulled 10 or 15 minutes earlier and left to rest that long, before opening up.  The thermometer read 200F when I pulled them out, and everything was tender, but the meat was a bit drier - also due to the fact I didn't take shrinkage into account - the meat pieces should have been a bit bigger than the veg, but since it was all the same size, the meat did shrink more than I even considered.

   Well, I hope my exploration has given you a few tips and ideas, and you can take note of my boo-boos to make yours even better!

_OH_

Now, my head is swimming with different pasty ideas - I could make a food truck or food booth with these ideas that would ROCK

imagine this:  a pasty filled with mashed potatoes and in the center....a meatloaf meatball!

oh yeah.

This is a great little documentary all about the Cornish pasty

This one too!

And this is a delightful Cornish woman making them at home :)

(I have to say that mine looks a great deal like Nan's did.)

I had leftovers the next morning after work, a bit more time in the oven at 350 until i could hear it bubbling, and it was perhaps even a bit better!

Enjoy and eat well!
Jen