Farming for Self-Sufficiency

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Any of the stewing bits will make soup. While on the subject of soup, the deep freeze comes to the aid of the would-be disciples of Mrs. Beeton today. There is nothing in the world so nourishing as good 'beef stock'. In the small household of today we cannot have a stock pot constantly simmering over the fire. But we can boil up gallons of good stock all at once and freeze it. Simply boil it up for a long time, bones and all (bones especially), and all odd bits, cow heels too. Pour it off the bones and let cool. Take off fat. Reduce it some more if you like and freeze it into cubes in your ice-cube moulds, or pour into cartons, leaving 1/2" space at the top of the carton otherwise the stuff will expand over it. If you have a few dozen of these frozen blocks of beef stock in your freezer you can make the most magnificent soup whenever you want to, by simply throwing a block into the pot together with whatever vegetables or whatever you are making soup out of. Pour into a polythene bag and put that in a square carton to shape it first. Stock is one thing that does not deteriorate in the slightest in the deep freeze, provided you get all the fat off it first. It does not want 'thawing'—just throw the ice straight into the pot. Try one day cooking some soup like this and at the same time heating up some tinned or packeted soup, to compare them.

But back to our joints. There is method in it all: it is not just superstition. Steaks must be cut across the grain of tender muscle. Muscle that does a lot of work, like the silverside, is tough. Silverside is on the outside of the leg and takes a lot of stresses while the beast is walking about: therefore it is tough and gristly and not too good for roasting, but it is prime beef just the same. It just happens to be very good for pickling. To pickle it prick it over with a needle, rub it with saltpetre and brown sugar and let it stand for 24 hours. Then put it in the brine tub for 8 to 10 days.

The brine tub. Brine should be clean water and salt boiled and allowed to cool. The concentration of salt should be such that a potato should float in it. If the potato sinks you haven't got enough salt. Any meat will keep indefinitely in brine: it was brined beef that took Drake around the world. The brine tub should have a loose round board under the meat, traditionally with holes bored through it, and another such board on top of the meat with a stone on it to keep the meat down. Do not use a metal weight for this purpose ever. Dorothy Hartley in her great book (it will become a world classic in time and Will be read long after Mrs. B. has been forgotten) Food In England (Macdonald), is good on how to treat and cook salted meats.

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