No. 1329

Ribs of Beef a la Bristed

Cotes de Boeuf a la Bristed

Choose a piece of rib, the meat of it being a pink color and well mortified. Remove the flesh from the spine, saw off the bone at the end of each rib, bone these at the side of the breast, being careful not to injure the layer of fat covering it, then saw off the bones six inches from the spine; now fold the boned piece over the other one, and in order to keep it in shape, tie firmly with twelve rounds of string, knotting it each time it goes round the meat. Garnish the bottom of a brazier with bardes of fat pork, and slices of ham, and lay the ribs on top. Moisten with four quarts of broth (No. 194a), and half a pint of Madeira wine; set around it two carrots cut lengthwise in four, two stalks of celery, two medium sized onions with two cloves in each, one bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf, mace, salt and whole peppers. Let boil slowly for three and a half to four hours, basting frequently with its own juice, and glaze a fine color. Strain the gravy, skim off the fat and reduce it with the same quantity of brown Spanish sauce (No. 414), and half a pint of Madeira wine. Lay the piece of meat on a dish, garnish around with stuffed tomatoes (No. 2842), and stuffed mushrooms (No. 650), and slip into the bottom of the dish one-third of its own sauce. Serve at the same time the rest of it in a sauce-bowl, after having mingled in a piece of good butter.

← No. 1328 Beef Palates in Tortue Beef No. 1330 Ribs of Beef a l'Hindostan →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a braise, not a roast: the rib is boned, folded, tied and cooked submerged in broth and Madeira, then glazed at the end. Ranhofer wrote it for a brigade with a stockpot always going, so most of the modernizing is a matter of scale and substitution.

Read "mortified" as aged"Well mortified" means hung and dry-aged until the surface has darkened and the interior is deep pink. Ask a butcher for a dry-aged bone-in rib; ordinary wet-aged supermarket beef will work but tastes flatter.
The butchery, plainlyYou want a rib section with the chine (spine) meat removed, the rib bones shortened, and the bones freed from the meat on the underside while the fat cap stays intact. A butcher will do this in two minutes if you say you want a boned, rolled and tied rib roast with the cap left on.
Bardes of fat porkThese are thin sheets of pork back fat used to line the pan. Fatback sliced about 1/8 inch is correct; thick-cut unsmoked bacon or pancetta is the usual stand-in, though smoke will show in the sauce.
Brazier and liquidA brazier is a wide, heavy pot with a lid — a Dutch oven or roasting pan with foil. Four quarts of broth is enough to nearly cover a full rib; for a 5-6 lb tied piece, 2 quarts plus the half pint (1 cup) of Madeira is closer to the mark.
"Boil slowly" means barely simmerThe hinge of the dish. Held at a true boil, a folded rib squeezes out its juices and turns stringy well before four hours. Keep the liquid at 180-190F, with the surface just trembling, and 3 1/2 hours will give very tender meat.
Glazing at the endUncover for the last 20-30 minutes and baste every few minutes with the reduced cooking liquid until the surface takes on a dark lacquer. This is the "fine color" — the recipe describes it as repeated basting with the meat's own juice, not browning under a broiler.
Brown Spanish sauceNo. 414 is espagnole: brown roux, veal stock, mirepoix and tomato, simmered and strained. A well-reduced veal demi-glace from a good butcher is the practical substitute; a cup or so is plenty once combined with the strained braising liquid.
Sauce finishSkim the fat thoroughly, reduce the braising liquid hard before adding the espagnole and the second cup of Madeira, then whisk in cold butter off the heat. Once the butter is in, the sauce must not boil or it will separate.
YieldA full rib treated this way serves 10-12. The stuffed tomatoes and stuffed mushrooms are separate recipes in the book and can be replaced with any firm vegetable garnish that holds its shape on the platter.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of naming dishes after customers is on display here; the "Bristed" may point to Charles Astor Bristed, the Astor grandson and man of letters, though Ranhofer gives no dedication and the identification is a guess. The technique itself is older and French — a côte de boeuf braisée, in which a rib is boned so the meat can be folded on itself, trussed into a compact cylinder, and cooked slowly in stock rather than roasted, a method that suits well-aged beef and makes carving at table easy. The twelve knotted rounds of string, the pork-fat lining of the pot, and the final glazing all belong to a kitchen where a joint was expected to arrive whole, glossy and ringed with garnish; the sauce built from the braising liquid and espagnole is the standard nineteenth-century economy, in which nothing rendered by the meat leaves the room.