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Fillet of Beef with Vegetables
Wipe a three-pound fillet, trim, and remove fat. Put onehalf pound butter in hot frying-pan and when melted add fillet, and turn frequently until the entire surface is seared and well browned; then turn occasionally until done, the time required being about thirty minutes. Remove to serving dish and garnish with one cup each cooked peas and carrots cut in fancy shapes, both well seasoned, one-half cup raisins seeded and cooked in boiling water until soft, and the caps from one-half pound fresh mushrooms sautéd in butter five minutes. Serve with Brown Mushroom Sauce. Pour off one-fourth cup fat from frying-pan, add five tablespoons flour, and stir until well browned; then add one cup Brown Soup Stock, onethird cup mushroom liquor, and the caps from one-half pound mushrooms cut in slices and sautéd in butter three minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and just before serving add gradually, while stirring constantly, the butter remaining in frying-pan.
To obtain mushroom liquor, scrape stems of mushrooms, break in pieces, cover with cold water, and cook slowly until liquid is reduced to one-third cup. 3 lbs. beef from lower
A whole beef tenderloin cooked entirely on the stovetop, with a pan sauce built in the same skillet. The technique is sound but the timings and fat quantities belong to a coal range.
- What "fillet" means hereA whole trimmed beef tenderloin, not a single steak. Three pounds is roughly a center-cut piece; the trailing fragment "3 lbs. beef from lower" is cut off mid-phrase and cannot be read with confidence. Ask for a center-cut tenderloin and have the silverskin removed.
- Half a pound of butterTwo sticks in a frying pan is far more than needed and will burn before the meat browns. Two to three tablespoons of butter with a spoonful of oil sears just as well; the recipe only calls for a quarter cup of the fat back for the roux, plus a knob to finish the sauce.
- Thirty minutes is the hingeHalf an hour of pan cooking will take a three-pound tenderloin well past palatable. Sear the surface hard, then finish in a 400F oven and pull the meat at 125-130F internal for medium-rare, about 20-25 minutes total depending on thickness. Rest 10 minutes before slicing; the thin tail end will always be more done than the middle.
- Brown Soup StockThe book's own recipe: beef and bones browned before simmering. A good unsalted beef stock or demi-glace loosened with water stands in. Season the sauce at the end, since reduced commercial stock is already salty.
- Mushroom liquorNot a bottled product. The stems are simmered in water and reduced to a third of a cup, which takes 20-30 minutes and is worth doing while the beef comes to room temperature. Dried porcini soaking liquid, strained, gives a similar concentrated note.
- The rouxFive tablespoons of flour to about a cup and a third of liquid gives a very thick, old-style brown sauce. Three tablespoons produces something closer to modern expectations; whisk in the finishing butter off the heat so it emulsifies rather than splits.
- Cut in fancy shapesCarrots turned into olives, barrels or thin rounds with a fluted cutter. Plain batons taste the same. The cooked raisins are not a misprint -- they are part of the garnish and should be plumped in boiling water until soft, then drained.
- YieldSix to eight servings, with roughly a cup and a half of sauce. The garnishes are arranged around the sliced meat on a platter.
This is Boston Cooking School cookery at its most Frenchified: a filet de boeuf ringed with glazed vegetables cut to shape, the sort of dish restaurant menus of the period might have called a la jardiniere. Boston Cooking School teaching was built on the idea that an American housekeeper could reproduce hotel cookery at home if the steps were written out plainly, and the elaborate garnish here exists to be looked at on a platter. The cooked raisins look back to an older habit of setting dried fruit against roast meat, which was retreating from English and American savory cooking by this date. Note too that the whole tenderloin is cooked in a frying pan on top of the range: reliable oven thermostats were not yet standard.