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Beef, Fillet of, Dressed on the Spit
Soak from four to five pounds of the fillet of beef for two days in vinegar, seasoned with thyme, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper. or if preferred, oil may be used instead of vinegar. When drained wrap it in an oiled paper, and put it on the spit before a quick fire. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A whole beef tenderloin, marinated for two days and then spit-roasted in a paper wrapping. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to manage a fire, so the important details are the ones left out.
- What the cut is"Fillet of beef" is the whole tenderloin, what a butcher today sells as a tenderloin roast or châteaubriand end. Four to five pounds is a full trimmed fillet; ask for it peeled of silverskin and with the chain removed, and tie it at intervals so the thin end does not overcook.
- Two days in vinegar needs a refrigeratorThe book was written for a cold larder in an unheated house. Marinate in the refrigerator, in a non-reactive dish or a zip bag, and turn it once or twice. Straight vinegar for 48 hours will also grey and soften the outer half-inch of a modern tenderloin, so a mix of vinegar and oil, or the oil-and-herb option the recipe offers, treats the meat better.
- The oiled paper is the hingeThe wrapping is not decoration. It shields a very lean cut from a fierce radiant fire while the inside comes up to temperature, exactly as a paper-wrapped fillet is done today. Use buttered or oiled parchment, not foil, if you want the same effect, and open it for the last few minutes to colour the surface.
- Spit to oven, or spit to rotisserieA rotisserie attachment over medium-high coals is the nearest equivalent. The book gives no oven temperature; 'quick fire' indicates only high, close heat, and in an oven a hot start of about 450F for the first 10 minutes dropping to 375F is a workable approximation.
- Cook to temperature, not to timeNo time is given because none can be. Pull a whole fillet at 125F internal for rare, 130-135F for medium rare, and rest it 15 minutes tented loosely. A 4-5 lb fillet takes roughly 35-50 minutes depending on thickness and heat.
- Seasoning quantitiesNone are given. For 4-5 lb, a reasonable marinade is about 2 cups vinegar or oil, one large onion sliced, a small bunch each of thyme and parsley, 2 teaspoons salt and a teaspoon of coarse pepper. Salt the surface again after draining and drying.
- The price line1s. 4d. per pound is sixteen old pence, a high price for beef in the later nineteenth century. It carries no information for a modern shopper beyond the fact that this was an expensive joint then, as it is now.
- YieldFive or six as written, and that is accurate for a main course; the same fillet will stretch to eight if it is carved thin and served cold with a sauce.
Spit-roasting was still a standard method for good meat when Cassell's was compiled, even as closed ranges were displacing open fires in British kitchens; the dictionary often gives both a spit and an oven version of the same joint, and roasting before the fire with a bottle-jack or clockwork jack was still practised. The long steep in vinegar with onion and herbs is the older technique of marinading, associated with French practice and applied here to a cut that needs no tenderising at all. Wrapping in oiled paper answers the same purpose as cooking en papillote: paper was a cheap heat shield, and a lean fillet turning in front of a blazing fire would otherwise be scorched dry before its centre warmed through.