No. 1314

Breast or Brisket of Beef a la Florence

Poitrine ou Bavette de Boeuf a la Florence

The name of brisket is applied to the part of the beef adjoining the cross ribs, and the neck. If the beef be of a good quality, the plate or brisket makes an excellent and economical boil, the meat being juicy and interlarded with fat giving it a very good flavor.

Put a quarter of a pound of butter in a saucepan, and when warm, add half a pound of lean bacon and half a pound of ham cut into squares of a half of an inch. When the bacon and ham are well browned, add four ounces of onions cut into an eighth of an inch squares, and two pounds of brisket of beef well freed from fat, boned and cut into one inch squares. Add a bunch of parsley, also thyme, bay leaf and a small clove of garlic, two cloves, two celery heads cut in quarters and trimmed and some stewed tomatoes. Moisten with a little broth (No. 194a), cook for two hours and a half, adding a little more broth at times, and serve on a dish garnished around with gastronome potatoes (No. 2789).

← No. 1313 Baron of Beef a la St. George Beef No. 1315 Corned Breast of Beef with Cabbage →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braise, not a boil, despite the opening remarks about brisket making good boiled beef. Ranhofer gives quantities for the meats and none at all for the liquid, tomatoes or seasoning, so the cook is expected to judge.

The cutBrisket is the pectoral cut Ranhofer places next to the cross ribs and neck, sold in America today as the flat or the point; the point is the fattier half and suits this dish. "Well freed from fat" most likely means trimming the heavy external cap rather than stripping the interior marbling that carries the flavour.
Cut size and cooking timeOne-inch cubes of brisket in two and a half hours is right only at a bare simmer with the pan covered, and the meat should pull apart under a fork rather than merely be tender.
SaltHalf a pound of bacon plus half a pound of ham against two pounds of beef is a heavy cure load. Blanch the bacon and ham briefly if either is aggressively salted, and season the braise only at the end.
Broth No. 194aRanhofer's cross-reference is to his ordinary beef stock. Unsalted or low-sodium beef stock is the substitute. "Moisten with a little" means enough to come partway up the meat, not to cover it; the tomatoes and the meat release more as they cook.
Celery headsA nineteenth-century celery head is a whole bunch, trimmed of leaves and outer stalks. Two hearts, quartered lengthwise, is the modern equivalent. Add them later than the beef if you want them intact rather than collapsed.
Stewed tomatoesNo quantity is given. About a cup of canned whole tomatoes, crushed, sits comfortably against two pounds of meat; more turns it into a tomato stew rather than a brown braise.
Gastronome potatoesRecipe No. 2789 in the same book, a garnish of small potatoes cooked in butter. Any small potato browned in butter and finished until tender serves the same purpose as the garnish.
YieldTwo pounds of beef plus a pound of cured pork feeds four to six as a main course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summation of some three decades or so as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organised as a professional reference: over 3,000 numbered preparations, each cross-linked to the stocks, garnishes and potato cuts filed elsewhere in the book. That is why this entry sends you to No. 194a for broth and No. 2789 for the potatoes rather than repeating them. The suffix a la Florence belongs to the long list of place-names French kitchens attached to dishes; in Ranhofer's usage such labels identify a fixed combination within his own system more than they trace any dish to the city itself. What is more telling is the opening paragraph, where he pauses to explain that brisket is "excellent and economical." A restaurant celebrated for canvasback duck and terrapin still kept braises of cheap collagen-rich cuts on its books, and the pound of bacon and ham fried off at the start gives such a cut a base of cured pork fat and salt to build on.