SC - um, LONG: Meat Brewets & the cooking of meat

[Lorix]

OK, I have a query.  Somewhere during my
cyberspace travels I came across a
reference to : Cameline Meat Brewet - beef
pickled in Cameline Sauce.

The writer said that he(?) had created this
cold meat dish from a reference in Le
Ménagier de Paris, which lists a menu ("IV.
Another Meat  Dinner," p. 228)
containing an item called "a cameline meat
brewet."   Now the writer had added
that although it is not known exactly how
this particular dish was prepared, the
recipe he gave was an approximation of how
such a meat brewet may have been
created.  Curye on Inglish describes two cold
brewets such as this, one without
meat (p. 128) and one with (p. 129).
The recipe given was
     2 lbs. beef, sliced into thin strips
     1 tsp. butter
     1 tsp. salt
     1/8 tsp. pepper
Meat butter in pan, add meat and seasonings
and saute until done. Drain well
and let cool. Place meat in a sealable
container and add Cameline Sauce to cover.
Refrigerate for several days, agitating
container once a day. Remove from
marinade and serve cold or at room
temperature. Serves 4 to 8.

Now I tried preparing it another way where I
used blade steak roasts
(for a feast this is the cheaper option but I
have done it with eye fillet & it is to die
for).
Now, I cut the largish blade roasts into
smallish roasts.  I roll them in a mixture of
spices (ginger, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, mixed
spice & ground black pepper), quickly sear
the outside in a hot frypan & then cook them
in a medium oven for about 20-45mins.
Note, this gives a selection of very rare,
medium rare & well done meat to cater for the
various tastes, however, I have not found
whether this manner of cooking would be
period???
As soon as the meat is taken from the oven, I
wrap it (while still hot) in alfoil
and then in a teacloth & let it cool, then
put it in the fridge overnight.  For my
last feast, I pre-prepared the meat several
weeks in advance in the above
manner & when cooled, I froze it.  Basically,
by cooking & cooling it in this manner,
all of the meat juices stay in the meat & it
becomes exceedingly tender.  This is really
useful when you are using poorer (& cheaper)
cuts of meat!

I was unsure that my diners would eat the
"pickled" variety of meat described
above (they are fairly conservative) so I
served the meat sliced as thin as possible
with the sauce as a side dish.  Every scrap
was eaten!  Next time, I am going to try half
'pickled' in carmeline & half per above.

AT LAST, SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO CHEW OVER
:-)
So is my method of making a meat brewet
period?
Do others cook their meat to achieve a
different grades of 'doneness'?
For those who have made Bruet dishes, what
was the consistency and presentation used?

Yours interestedly and long-windedly

Lady Louisa Lypparde de Cattone, known as
LORIX :-)


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