Image of kitchen table with bread in the center.

The Weekly Feast – Alloes of Beef

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by

Allyson
in

Back in May, I decided to attempt a new recipe while out in the field, cooking over a fire at a Renaissance Faire. I do this a couple of times a year, when I know I have time to play with new things. Not all fairs allow me the time to pay attention to details, and so quite a lot of the time I stick with a standard rotation of recipes. But this was a new fair, and one which I had no other responsibilities at. I was just there to cook and talk about history, and maybe sell a few cookbooks. So I picked a new one, and ran with it.

The result was incredibly delicious. I had people trying to steal pieces off of each other’s plates. They scraped the bottom of my dutch oven with bits of bread, to be certain they’d eaten every last drop. It was an impressive sight, to say the least. It seems to me, this makes a wonderful first recipe for my weekly recipe post.

To make Alloes of beef

Take lene beef and cut hym in thyn pecys and lay hit on A borde then take sewet of motton or of beef and herbys and onyons hackyd small to gether then straw thy leshes of beef with powder of pepur and a lytell salt and strew on thy sewet and the herbys. And rolle them up ther yn put them on a broche and roste them and serue them up hote. — Transcription of original receipt (Source: MS Pepys 1047)

 

Rolls of stuffed beef in ale sauce
Allyson’s Alloes of Beef, prepared at the Enchanted Orchard Faire in May 2024.

Items you’ll need:

  • cast iron pot to cook in
  • knives for slicing
  • fork and spoon for making the stuffing
  • toothpicks or string to hold your rolls together
  • a bottle opener for the stout

Ingredients:

  • 2.5 to 3 lbs beef roast
  • 1 lb bacon
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
  • 1 to 2 eggs
  • salt, pepper, thyme to taste
  • stout beer (for cooking in)

Slice your beef roast into slices as thin as you can manage while keeping them together. Using a meat hammer, rolling pin, or the back of a really large wooden spoon, beat the meat to make it more tender (but not enough that it falls apart). Set the meat aside. If you like, you can sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on each slice as you add it to the pile, but it’s not necessary.

Mince the bacon and onion as finely as you can manage. Add in 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs and one beaten egg, and mix by hand to distribute. Add in more breadcrumbs and/or egg to make it come out with a moist but not runny consistency.

​Lay out each slice of beef and spread a spoonful of the stuffing onto it. Smooth it over, so it isn’t too thick or bulky, then roll the beef up. Secure it into a roll with toothpicks or string, and place these rolls (or alloes) into the cast iron pot. Do not oil the bottom of the pot! Continue to create rolls and place them in the pot until you run out of meat.

When all the rolls are secured in the pot, pour the stout beer over the beef. It should not cover them, but should come about half way up the rolls. Sprinkle liberally with the salt, pepper, and thyme. Cover the pot and let it simmer over a steady fire or in a 400°F oven until the beer reduces into a thick gravy in the bottom of the pot. Try not to let it burn.

Notes:
This dish was one I made out in the field for my very first try, and it was incredible! It’s very easy to pull together, and the meat turned out tender and melted in your mouth. The beer sort of disappears, leaving just a hint of flavor behind. I’m not a fan of stout beers, but this was a terrific use of one. I served this dish up with rice sauteed with vegetables, and it was quite good. You could also serve it with noodles (which were available in the medieval period) or mashed potatoes (for a more modern take).

I did add extra liquid to this particular batch. Cooking over an open fire is best done with an eye to longevity and sturdiness. In other words, I need recipes that aren’t going to wilt on me if I open the lid to show the patrons, and I need something that isn’t going to burn if the timing isn’t perfect. This was an excellent choice of recipe for cooking and a ren faire. The preparation was fun, as I pounded the meat with a very large (almost 3 foot long) spoon that had been gifted to me. People had fun watching me and commenting. When the beer started to run dry and I was noticing patches that indicated scorching was soon to follow, I added some onion broth (mine was from a packet, just a standard Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix tossed into 3 cups of water, but you could use home made fresh if you wanted) to keep the cooking going. In all, it hung over a low fire for about 4 hours, before we took it off and devoured it. The onion soup had also reduced, and the resulting gravy was so delicious!
If you have to take it off the heat before the liquid is a gravy, you can always make a slurry of a bit of flour mixed into an equal amount of room temperature water, which you then pour into the boiling liquid. This will help it thicken into a good gravy. Add the slurry slowly, so you can avoid making it TOO thick!
        

Comments

3 responses to “The Weekly Feast – Alloes of Beef”

  1. Craig Young Avatar
    Craig Young

    Sounds delicious, will have to give it a try on a camping trip. Thanks for translating the original recipe, I wouldn’t have had a clue what that was calling for.

    1. Allyson Avatar
      Allyson

      Redacting (translating) old recipes, even when the original language is English, is a skill that takes a while to develop. They leave stuff out, don’t mention amounts or temperatures, and generally are just very vague. That’s because everyone knew how to cook, so writing it down was a bit of a foreign idea until the early 1800s. It would be like having to write instructions for someone on how to get a glass of water from the sink; why would you bother? Heh…

      I admit, this recipe is one I’ve done several times now, once even with chicken breast cut then and then pounded, and I just love it. It has such great flavor!

  2. Firehand Avatar
    Firehand

    Cut the roast with or against the grain?