No. 1351

Sirloin of Beef a la Degrange

Contrefilet de Boeuf a la Degrange

Prepare and cook the sirloin the same as for a la de Lesseps (No. 1352); untie, glaze and lay it on a dish, garnishing both sides with carrots and green peas, and the ends with fried celery, strain and skim off the fat from the gravy, slip a part of it under the sirloin, serving the rest in a separate sauce-bowl.

Carrots and Peas, Garnishing.—Cut some carrots with a vegetable cutter into balls of three-eighths of an inch in diameter; blanch and cook them in white broth (No. 194a) with a little butter and sugar; when the carrots are done, and the juice well reduced, mix in an equal quantity of peas, thickening the whole with a little half-glaze (No. 400) and fresh butter.

Fried Celery.—Pick out the most tender leaves in the heart of a raw celery head; cut them into thin strips the whole length of the stalk; they may be either blanched or used raw. Dip each piece in a good frying batter (No. 137), and fry to a fine color in hot fat.

← No. 1350 Sirloin of Beef a la Dauphiness Beef No. 1352 Sirloin of Beef a la de Lesseps →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's garnish assembly rather than a standalone recipe: the beef itself is cooked by cross-reference, and what is written out here is the trim. Read No. 1352 first, since the meat and its gravy come from there.

Contrefilet, not American sirloinThe French contrefilet is the boneless strip loin (top loin) running along the outside of the short loin — what a US butcher sells as a strip loin roast. It is not the modern American "sirloin" cut from behind the loin.
The cross-referencesNo. 1352 supplies the actual cooking, No. 194a is a white broth, No. 400 is half-glaze — a demi-glace — and No. 137 is a frying batter; what goes into each is set out at those numbers, not here. Good unsalted stock reduced with a little brown sauce stands in for the half-glaze; a plain beer or egg batter for No. 137.
DonenessNo temperature is given here because the cooking is at No. 1352. Roasted, a strip loin is best pulled at 125-130F internal for rare to medium-rare and rested 15-20 minutes before untying and glazing.
GlazingTo glaze means coating the rested roast with reduced, syrupy meat stock until it takes a shine, brushed on and often set with a brief blast of top heat. Do it after untying, at the last moment, so the surface stays lacquered.
The carrot ballsThree-eighths of an inch corresponds to a small Parisienne scoop. Blanch, then glaze in the broth with butter and a pinch of sugar until the liquid is nearly gone and coats them; add the peas only at the end so they keep their color.
PeasFresh shelled peas were seasonal; frozen peas are closer to the intended sweetness than most fresh supermarket peas, and need only a minute in the reduced carrot glaze.
Fried celeryUse the pale inner stalks and leaves of a celery heart, cut in long thin strips. Fry at 350-375F until pale gold — a minute or two — and salt immediately. Blanching first, as allowed, gives a softer interior; raw stays crisper.
YieldA trimmed strip loin roast of 4-5 lb serves eight to ten. Serve most of the strained, degreased gravy separately as directed; too much under the meat will soften the glaze.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it follows the nineteenth-century restaurant convention of naming a dish for a patron or public figure and distinguishing it purely by garnish — this loin is cooked exactly as the loin at No. 1352 and differs only in what surrounds it on the platter. "A la de Lesseps" almost certainly nods to Ferdinand de Lesseps of the Suez Canal, a celebrity of the period; the Degrange of this entry is not identified in the recipe, and the name may as easily belong to a colleague in the kitchen as to a guest in the dining room. The construction is textbook grande cuisine: a large glazed joint, a glazed vegetable garnish set in matched pairs down the sides, something fried and architectural at the ends, and the sauce divided between platter and boat. Fried celery in particular belonged to an era when a garnish was expected to add height and crackle to a dish carved at the table.