No. 1347

Middle Short Loin Braised a la Messinoise

Aloyau Braise a la Messinoise

Select a short loin weighing about thirty pounds; taken from a young and tender beef, and prepare it as follows; remove all the fat surrounding the tenderloin, detach the tenderloin from the chine-bone sufficiently so as to be able to saw off the chine-bone. Cut away the aitch bone from the sirloin. Prick the thick flank with the tip of a small knife; flatten it; remove the skin from the tenderloin, also the large nerve on the sirloin, trim the loin well, leaving the flank wider on the thin side of the tenderloin. Season with salt and pepper, lard the meat with larding pork and seasoned raw ham, roll the flank over the tenderloin, covering the latter with slices of fat an inch or more in thickness; tie it up, making a knot at each turn of the string, which must be about three-quarters of an inch apart. Cover the bottom of a buttered braising pan with cut slices of carrots and onions, lay the loin on top, moisten to a quarter of its height with broth, (No. 194a) and a quarter of a bottleful of Marsala wine, adding a quarter of a pound of sliced mushrooms. Reduce to a glaze, then moisten again to three-quarters of its heighth with the same quantity of broth and Marsala wine as before. Cook slowly for four hours, basting it frequently with its own gravy, and when the meat is cooked, trim and lay it on a long dish, garnishing the sides with small macaroni Milanese timbales (No. 2988), and the ends with small round ravioles (No. 158). Strain the gravy, skim it carefully, reduce to the consistency of a quarter-glaze, then pour over the meat one-third of it, serving the rest at the same time in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1346 Roast Beef-Middle Short Loin—English Style Beef No. 1348 Middle Short Loin a la Norwood →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is banquet cookery: a thirty-pound short loin, larded, wrapped in its own flank, and braised for four hours. Almost nothing about it translates directly to a home kitchen, but the method scales down if you understand what each stage is doing.

Scale and yieldA thirty-pound short loin will feed forty or more and needs a commercial braising pan and two people to lift it. A 5-6 lb boneless strip loin or, better for braising, a well-marbled chuck or top round, treated the same way, serves eight to ten and cooks in about two and a half hours.
The butchery, in plain termsThe chine bone is the section of backbone running along the loin; the aitch bone is the pelvic bone at the sirloin end. Ranhofer expects you to saw both away yourself. A butcher will bone and trim a loin and give you the bones for the braising liquid if asked.
LardingLarding means threading strips of chilled pork fat (and here seasoned raw ham) through the lean with a larding needle. It is insurance against a long braise drying out lean meat. If you skip the larding, choose a fattier cut rather than a loin.
The hinge: moisten in two stagesThe liquid goes in to a quarter of the meat's height, is reduced hard to a sticky glaze, and only then is the pan refilled to three-quarters. That first reduction is what builds the colour and depth of the finished sauce. Skipping it gives you a pale, thin braise.
Heat"Cook slowly" on a nineteenth-century range means a bare tremble, no boil; Ranhofer gives no temperature. If you braise in an oven, something around 300F should keep the liquid barely moving. A rolling braise squeezes the muscle fibres and dries the meat even while it sits in stock.
Marsala and brothA quarter bottle is roughly 6 fl oz, twice over, so about 12 fl oz total. Use dry Marsala, not the sweet cooking Marsala sold in supermarkets, which will make the reduced sauce cloying. Broth No. 194a is one of Ranhofer's basic broths; unsalted stock is the modern equivalent, since the sauce is reduced hard.
Quarter-glazeQuarter-glaze is stock reduced until it coats a spoon lightly and is distinctly sticky at the lip of the pan but still pourable when hot -- a lighter reduction than a half-glaze and well short of a glaze. Skim thoroughly before reducing or the fat emulsifies into it.
The garnishesThe macaroni timbales and ravioli are separate recipes elsewhere in the book. Any small baked pasta timbale and a small filled pasta will read correctly; the point is a ring of neat, uniform shapes framing the meat on a long platter.
TyingIndividual knots three-quarters of an inch apart, rather than one continuous spiral, mean you can cut away string progressively as you carve without the whole roast slackening. It is worth the extra minute on any large rolled joint.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially the working repertoire of a restaurant that fed the city's banquets. A thirty-pound loin larded, braised and set on a long dish between rings of timbales and ravioli is a service piece, meant to be carried whole to the table and carved in view. The name a la Messinoise points to Messina in Sicily, and the Sicilian cue here is the pasta garnish and the Marsala in the braising liquid rather than anything in the beef itself; nineteenth-century French kitchen naming worked this way, attaching a place to a dish by way of one or two signature ingredients. Marsala was a British-developed fortified wine from western Sicily that had been in the export trade since the late eighteenth century, which is why it turns up as readily in a New York kitchen as a Palermo one.