No. 1337

Rump of Beef a la Boucicault

Pointe de Culotte a la Boucicault

The rump or hip of beef is placed on the exterior side of the spine, at the lower extremity; it commences where the loin ends and finishes at the beginning of the tail. The rump of beef is the most delicate part of the hind quarter; it is excellent for boiling or braising purposes, also for corning.

Bone a sixteen pound piece of the rump of beef, trim off the fat, season with salt and mignonette, roll it lengthwise and tie, then set it in a brazier, and moisten to twice its height with some broth (No. 194a); heat the liquid, skim it carefully; at the first boil, remove the brazier, so that the broth only simmers gently, adding six medium carrots, three turnips, two onions, six leeks, and two stalks of celery. Let continue to cook for five hours; after three hours add two pieces of salt bacon, of one pound each, parboiled for twenty minutes; let the whole simmer for two hours or more until the meat is perfectly cooked, then strain the liquor, skim off the fat, add a little espagnole sauce (No. 414), and reduce to the consistency of thick gravy. Glaze the piece of meat; dress on a large dish, and garnish the side with knob celery braised and glazed, sauted Brussels sprouts, the bacon cut in slices dressed on each side of the sprouts, and celery; at the end slices of beef tongue (unsmoked) coated on both sides with thick soubise sauce (No. 543), breaded and fried; pour over part of the gravy, send the rest of the gravy in one or two separate sauce-boats.

← No. 1336 Round Buttock Top, Parisian Style Beef No. 1338 Rump a la Careme →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing a full-scale pièce de résistance for a banquet table: a boned, rolled rump simmered for five hours and dressed with four separate garnishes. The braise itself is straightforward; most of the work is in the cross-references.

The hinge: never let it boilThe instruction to pull the brazier off the heat at the first boil is the whole technique. A rolled rump held at a bare shiver, around 180–190°F, comes out sliceable; one kept at a rolling boil for five hours shreds and dries, because the muscle fibres squeeze out moisture faster than the collagen turns to gelatin.
ScaleSixteen pounds boned will serve upwards of twenty-five people. A 4–5 lb piece behaves the same way at roughly half the vegetables and 2½ to 3 hours; check with a skewer rather than the clock.
MignonetteIn this book mignonette means coarsely cracked peppercorns, not the shallot-and-vinegar sauce served with oysters today. Crush them in a mortar or under a pan; ground pepper is not the same thing.
BrazierA braisière is a deep, heavy, close-lidded pot. Any large Dutch oven or stockpot that will hold the meat covered by twice its depth in liquid does the job.
The cross-referenced saucesNo. 194a is Ranhofer's broth. Espagnole (No. 414) is the brown mother sauce built on brown roux and stock; soubise (No. 543) is a thick onion puree bound with bechamel or rice. Any competent modern versions of the latter two work here — the soubise needs to be stiff enough to cling to a tongue slice for breading.
Salt baconMost likely unsmoked salt pork or green streaky bacon rather than modern smoked rashers. The twenty-minute parboil is to draw off salt; keep it, or the braising liquid will be too salty to reduce for the gravy.
Knob celeryCeleriac. Peel, cut into large regular pieces, braise in a little of the stock, then reduce that stock to a syrup and roll the pieces in it to glaze.
Glazing the meatReduce some of the strained, defatted braising liquor to a sticky glaze and brush it over the beef in several coats. This is what gives the joint its lacquered look on the platter; it is done just before serving, not during cooking.
The tongueUnsmoked (fresh) beef tongue must be simmered until tender and peeled before it is sliced, coated in soubise, breaded and fried. Ranhofer assumes you have one cooked in the larder; budget three or four hours if you do not.

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 beef chapter reads like an anatomy lesson followed by a seating plan — hence the opening paragraph here explaining exactly where on the carcass the rump sits. Dishes in the book are routinely named for the patrons, performers and public figures who ate them in the restaurant's private rooms, and the name attached to this one may possibly point to Dion Boucicault, the Irish-born playwright and actor whose melodramas filled New York theatres through the 1860s and 1870s — though the identification is speculative, and the spelling could equally point elsewhere. The construction is pure French service of the period: a large braised joint set on a platter and ringed with contrasting garnishes, each cooked separately, so that the carver's plate offered braised celeriac, sautéed sprouts, sliced bacon and a fried, sauce-coated round of tongue alongside the beef. It is a style of presentation that vanished with the dining rooms that could staff it.