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BEEF, FILLET OF (a la Viennoise)
Take two pounds of lean beef, remove the sinews, mince very fine. Mix this with a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and one of savoury herbs, a little flour, one whole and one yolk of egg, and season with salt, pepper, and a little grated nutmeg. With this form some even-sized balls, and flatten them out to give them the shape of round fillets. Peel and slice three onions, cut some slices from the centre of each rather thicker than the rest, divide the rings carefully, and reserve the largest for frying separately. Dissolve an ounce of butter in a frying-pan, and fry the divided onions until of a golden colour; put them in a small stewpan with sufficient brown sauce to keep them moist, and simmer gently for about twenty minutes. Dredge the prepared fillets with a little flour, and fry in butter in a frying-pan. Dip the onion rings into flour, then into white of egg, and again in flour, place them in a frying basket, and fry a golden colour. Dish up the fillets, put a spoonful of stewed onions on the centre of each, ornament round with the fried onion rings. Probable cost, 2s. 6d.
A minced-beef patty dressed up as a fillet, served with a brown-sauce onion compote and a crown of fried onion rings. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the terms mean something different now.
- "Fillet" is a shape, not a cutThe dish uses lean beef minced at home and pressed into rounds roughly the size and thickness of a tournedos. Buy coarse-ground chuck or ask for a lean cut minced once; twice-ground supermarket mince packs too densely and gives a springy texture.
- Brown sauceThis means espagnole or a reduced demi-glace, not the bottled condiment. A well-reduced beef stock thickened with a brown roux, about half a cup, is enough to keep three onions moist.
- Egg quantitiesOne whole egg plus one yolk to two pounds of meat is a light bind. Add the flour a tablespoon at a time until the mixture just holds a shape; the mix should not be wet.
- Savoury herbsIn Victorian recipes this usually meant a mixture of dried herbs, commonly thyme and marjoram, sometimes with savory or sage. A teaspoon of dried thyme and marjoram together is a fair reading.
- Two frying stages, two fatsThe patties are shallow-fried in butter, but the rings go into a frying basket, i.e. deep fat. The book gives no temperature; modern practice for such coatings is around 350-375F, at which butter would burn, so use a neutral oil for the basket.
- The onion ringsFlour, egg white, flour is a dry coating rather than a batter, and it sticks best if the rings are patted dry first. Fry them last and serve at once, since they soften within minutes of hitting the sauced fillets.
- Timing the pattiesRoughly four minutes a side over medium heat for a fillet about three-quarters of an inch thick. Minced beef is best taken to 160F throughout, as grinding distributes surface bacteria through the meat.
- Yield and costTwo pounds of beef gives roughly six generous fillets or eight modest ones. The 'probable cost, 2s. 6d.' is the book's standard price note; the recipe states no number of servings, and the figure has no modern equivalent beyond curiosity.
Cassell's ran its recipes as dictionary entries, which is why a dish of minced beef sits under "Beef, Fillet of" among the roasts and the true fillets: the alphabet, not the butcher, decided the heading. The "a la Viennoise" tag may have suggested to English readers the Austrian and German habit of shaping seasoned minced beef into flat cakes and frying them, the family that includes Frikadellen and the Deutsches Beefsteak, though in classical cookery the term more often denotes a breadcrumbed cutlet, which this recipe is not. Giving a cheap cut the outline and garnish of an expensive one was a familiar conceit of period cookery books.