No. 1339

Rump of Beef a la Chatellier

Pointe de Culotte de Boeuf a la Chatellier

Pieces of boiled beef are only to be served at family dinners. Select a rump of beef weighing twenty pounds, having it exceedingly fresh; bone, roll up, and tie. Lay it in a stock pot, and moisten plentifully with broth (No. 194a); boil, skim carefully, then continue to boil slowly and regularly for five hours. After it has cooked three hours, put into a net four pounds of carrots, and two pounds of turnips (both pared and cooked cork-shaped), also one onion with five cloves in it, eight leeks, a stalk of celery, and half a parsnip; set the net containing these vegetables into the stock pot, and let cook with the beef. Blanch separately a quartered cabbage, drain, put it into a separate saucepan and moisten with some very fat broth taken from the pot; let cook for an hour, and just when ready to serve, drain the meat, untie, brush over with meat glaze (No. 402) and glaze in the oven to a fine color; garnish the ends with the drained cabbage, arrange the carrots and turnips in clusters on both sides, and at one side set some mellow potatoes (No. 2799), and at the other side some stuffed peppers (No. 2768); have a horseradish sauce (No. 478) served separately; glaze the meat once more, and serve very hot.

← No. 1338 Rump a la Careme Beef No. 1340 Rump of Beef, Bourgeoise Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is French boiled beef built for a banquet table: a twenty-pound rolled rump, a netful of turned vegetables, and a lacquer of meat glaze at the end. Everything about it scales down cleanly except the timing, which belongs to the size of the piece.

The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: keep it barely simmering -- Ranhofer says boil, but he qualifies it with "slowly and regularly," which reads as something gentler than a rolling boil. Hold the liquid around 180-190F; a hard boil will squeeze the muscle fibres and leave the beef dry and stringy no matter how long it cooks.
Scaling the meatTwenty pounds of boned, rolled rump serves roughly 25-30 people. A 4-5 lb boneless rump or top round, rolled and tied, feeds six to eight and will be fork-tender in about 2 1/2 to 3 hours rather than five. Judge by feel, not the clock: a skewer should slide out with no resistance.
"Exceedingly fresh" and the brothThe instruction reflects an era without reliable refrigeration. More useful today is the second half: the beef is moistened with broth, not water, which is what separates this from plain boiled beef. Unsalted or lightly salted beef or veal stock, enough to cover, is the intent.
Cork-shaped vegetablesPared and cut "cork-shaped" means turned into short, even cylinders about the size of a wine cork, so they cook at the same rate and look uniform on the platter. Ranhofer specifies a net; a cheesecloth or muslin bundle will serve the same purpose, letting you lift the whole garnish out intact.
Add the vegetables lateThree hours in for a twenty-pound piece; for a 4-5 lb roast, add them in the last 45 minutes to an hour. Carrots and turnips given the full cooking time collapse into the broth.
Meat glazeGlaze (glace de viande) is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A cup of good reduced stock cooked down to a few tablespoons does the job. The recipe gives no oven setting, only "glaze in the oven to a fine color": brush it on and give it a few minutes in a hot oven until it takes on a dark shine.
The cabbageBlanching first removes the sulphurous edge; the hour in "very fat broth" skimmed from the pot is what makes it taste of beef. An hour is long by modern standards for quartered cabbage, so check at 30-40 minutes and pull it while it still holds its shape.
The cross-referencesNos. 2799, 2768 and 478 point to mellow potatoes, stuffed peppers and horseradish sauce elsewhere in The Epicurean. Any buttery mashed or steamed potato and a plain horseradish cream will complete the plate; the peppers are optional garnish.
Save the brothFive hours of beef and vegetables leaves an excellent bouillon. Strain, chill, lift the fat, and keep it; the pot liquor was arguably as valuable as the meat.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast record of his cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and it is essentially boeuf bouilli dressed for company. Ranhofer opens with a small social judgement -- boiled beef is for family dinners -- and then spends the rest of the entry contradicting himself with turned carrots, stuffed peppers and two coats of glaze, which is exactly how a plain pot-au-feu earned a place on a restaurant menu. The name "a la Chatellier" follows the period habit of attaching a proper name to a garnish; like many such labels in the book, it seems to identify a particular arrangement of accompaniments, though whether any specific person or place lies behind it is unclear. What the recipe really preserves is the logic of the nineteenth-century stock pot, where one large piece of meat, its broth, and its vegetables produced several courses at once, and the surrounding entries -- Rump a la Careme, Rump Bourgeoise Style -- are variations on the same economy.