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One Shalot (Sprig of Thyme)
A sprig of Thyme.
A sprig of Tarragon.
A sprig of Chervil.
A sprig of Chive.
A few sprigs of Parsley.
Two dozen new Kidney Potatoes.
Salt, Pepper and a pinch of Cayenne.
Eight fried bread Croûtons the size of the Fillets.
Choose a fillet of medium-sized thickness, cut the piece in eight even-sized slices of, say, a quarter of a pound each, beat them a little with a cutlet-bat, and trim them neatly. Prepare the same number of bread croûtons, about the size of the fillets, fry them in clarified butter, and drain.
Warm up the meat glaze in a small earthenware pan, work it with a wooden spoon, add gradually two ounces of fresh butter, stir vigorously until it resembles a light creamy substance, adding in the meantime the lemon juice, one finely chopped shalot, also the tarragon, parsley, chervil and chive, all finely chopped. Season with pepper, salt, and a little cayenne.
Clean the potatoes, parboil them, drain them well, and fry them in butter a nice light yellow; season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne.
When done sprinkle with a little finely chopped parsley. Put two ounces of butter in a sauté-pan; when hot add the fillets, let them brown on one side, then turn them and brown the other side over a quick fire, season a little, dish up on the croûtons, place them on a round dish, put the potatoes in the centre or round the fillets in a row. Put a dessertspoonful of the butter prepared as above on each fillet, sprinkle a few drops of meat glaze in the centre of this, and serve quickly.
Filets de Bœuf à la Viennoise. (Fillets of Beef à la Viennoise.) Ingredients.
Two pounds of lean Beef.
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
One teaspoonful of Savoury Herbs.
Three ounces of Butter.
One tablespoonful of Flour.
This page has come apart in the printing: the ingredient list belongs to one dish, the method to another, and the last four lines are the opening of the next recipe entirely. What survives intact is a workable method for pan-fried beef fillets on croûtons with a herb-and-glaze butter, and it is worth reconstructing.
- What the dish actually isEight fillet steaks of about 4 oz each, browned in butter, set on fried bread of the same diameter, sauced with a whipped butter of meat glaze, shallot and fines herbes, and ringed with butter-fried new potatoes. Serves eight as written, or four generously.
- The missing quantitiesThe printed list gives no weight of beef, no meat glaze and no lemon, though the method calls for all three. Reckon on 2 lb of trimmed fillet, about 4 tablespoons of glaze, and the juice of half a lemon.
- Meat glazeGlace de viande: brown stock reduced until it sets to a sticky syrup. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a good reduced beef stock stands in. It is the backbone of the butter here; without it the sauce is only herb butter.
- The hinge — keep the butter coolThe glaze is warmed, not heated, and the butter is beaten into it off direct fire until it lightens to a cream. Let it get hot and it splits into oil and glaze, and no amount of stirring brings it back. A bowl over barely warm water is the safest place for it.
- Shalot and fines herbes"Shalot" is shallot; one small bulb, chopped as fine as you can get it, since it goes in raw. Tarragon, chervil, chives and parsley are the classic fines herbes quartet, and those are exactly the four the method tells you to chop into the butter; the thyme sprig in the printed list is not among them. Chervil is the one you may have to grow or substitute, and a little extra parsley with a pinch of tarragon covers for it.
- Kidney potatoesKidney-shaped waxy new potatoes — Ratte, Anya or any small waxy variety. Two dozen small ones is roughly 1½ lb. Parboil 6-8 minutes, drain very dry, then fry in butter until pale gold.
- Quick fireReal heat, not a moderate pan. Get the butter foaming and just colouring, brown one side without moving the steaks, turn once. Timing depends on thickness, and these are beaten a little flatter with a cutlet-bat, so they will go quickly; the recipe seasons them once both sides have been browned.
- CroûtonsRounds of crustless bread cut to the diameter of the steaks and fried in clarified butter — clarified because whole butter burns before the bread crisps. Drain on paper and keep them warm and uncovered or they soften.
- AssemblyEverything is served at once: steak on croûton, a dessertspoon (about 2 teaspoons) of the herb butter on top, a few drops of glaze in the centre of that. The butter is meant to melt into the bread on the way to the table.
À la Viennoise in nineteenth-century professional cookery usually signalled breadcrumbing and frying in butter, the same logic that gives us Wiener schnitzel — though that heading belongs to the next recipe on the page, not to the method printed above it. The herb butter is straight fines herbes practice — the classic quartet of parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives, chopped raw and added at the last moment so the volatile oils are not cooked off. Books of this class, aimed at cooks running large private kitchens, generally assume a pot of meat glaze standing by; it was the residue of the stockpot and the thing that made a plain sauté taste expensive.