Hunters' Beef

Ingredients

• 25 pounds beef round
• 3 ounces saltpetre
• 1 ounce cloves
• 0.5 ounce allspice
• 1 whole nutmeg
• 1 quart salt
• suet
• 1 pint water
• tape
• fat

Instructions

1. Pound together the saltpetre, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and salt until very fine. Remove the bone from the beef round and rub the mixture well on both sides. Place some of the mixture at the bottom of a tub just large enough to hold the beef, lay the beef in, and strew the remainder on the top.
2. Rub the beef well every day for two weeks, spreading the mixture over it each time. At the end of two weeks, wash the beef and bind it with tape to keep it round and compact. Fill the hole where the bone was with a piece of fat.
3. Lay the beef in a pan of convenient size, strew a little suet over the top, and pour on it a pint of water. Cover the pan with a coarse crust and a thick paper over that. Bake for five hours. When cold, take off the tape.
4. Serve as a relish at twelve o'clock or for supper, eaten with vinegar, mustard, oil, or salad. Skim the grease from the gravy and bottle it; it makes an excellent seasoning for any made dish.