No. 1349

Sirloin of Beef a la Bradford

Contrefilet de Boeuf a la Bradford

Have a sirloin prepared and cooked as explained for chiccory and sweet souffied potatoes (No. 1356); garnish the sides with small corn fritters, and decorate the ends with corn and potato croquettes. Serve separately some good gravy (No. 404) thickened with a little brown sauce (No. 414), also a sauce-boatful of horseradish cream sauce (No. 478).

Corn Fritters.—Cut the grain through the center the whole length of the cob, and by pressing on it with the dull edge of the knife, the interior of the grains can be removed without the skins; chop the corn up fine and mingle it with a very delicate pancake batter (No. 3072), and cook it in small pancakes each two inches and a half in diameter; garnish the sides of the sirloin with them, having one overlapping the other.

Corn Croquettes.—Cut the corn as for corn fritters; mix the corn with two-thirds of its quantity of finely mashed potatoes and cream, to which add a piece of good butter, set it in a dish to get cold and then form it into cylinder-shaped croquettes one inch in diameter by two and one-quarter inches in length, dip them in beaten eggs, then in bread-crumbs and fry a fine color in hot fat, garnish the ends of the dish with these croquettes.

← No. 1348 Middle Short Loin a la Norwood Beef No. 1350 Sirloin of Beef a la Dauphiness →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in cross-references, assuming you own the whole book; the actual work here is the two corn garnishes, both of which stand on their own. A few translations before you start.

What a contrefilet isThe boneless top of the short loin — what an American butcher sells as strip loin or New York strip roast, the sirloin with the fillet and bone removed. A 5-6 lb piece serves eight to ten as the centerpiece Ranhofer intends.
The cross-referencesNo. 1356 is the sirloin roasted and dressed with chicory and soufflé potatoes; No. 404 is a meat gravy, No. 414 a brown sauce (espagnole), No. 478 horseradish worked into cream — the wording of the recipe itself is all we have to go on for these. If you have no espagnole, a well-reduced beef stock mounted with a little butter serves the same purpose.
Roasting temperatureThe Epicurean gives no internal temperatures; roasting thermometers were not standard kitchen equipment. Pull a strip roast at 125-130F for medium rare and rest it 20 minutes.
Milking the cobThe hinge of both garnishes. Splitting each row of kernels lengthwise and scraping with the back of the knife leaves the tough hulls on the cob and gives you only the milky interior. Skip it and the fritters turn stringy and the croquettes will not bind.
The batterNo. 3072 is a pancake batter, and the recipe here specifies a 'very delicate' one — read it as thin and crêpe-like rather than a thick leavened batter. The corn should be suspended in just enough batter to hold it, not bound into a thick drop-fritter.
Croquette textureThe recipe gives two-thirds as much mashed potato as corn — three parts corn to two of potato — which is a loose mixture; it must be thoroughly chilled, ideally several hours, before it will roll into 1-inch cylinders. Egg and crumb them, then chill again before frying at 350-375F.
Sweet cornRanhofer means fresh sweet corn in season. Frozen kernels have already been cut off with hulls attached and will not scrape; if fresh corn is out of season, this is a dish to postpone.
AssemblyFritters overlapping down both long sides of the platter, croquettes standing at the two ends, sauces passed separately. Everything fried should go on at the last moment, while the roast rests.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and its beef section is essentially a catalogue of the same cut dressed a hundred different ways — Norwood, Dauphiness, Bradford, one after another. Names like these were Ranhofer's stock in trade: some honor patrons or private dining rooms, some places, some simply distinguish one garnish from the next, and the book rarely explains which is which. What marks this one as American rather than French is the corn. A Parisian kitchen of the same date would have garnished a contrefilet with artichoke bottoms or stuffed mushrooms; Ranhofer, cooking for New Yorkers, put fresh sweet corn through two classical French treatments — the fritter and the breaded croquette — and got a plate that is unmistakably of its country while remaining entirely correct in technique.