No. 1353

Sirloin of Beef a la Perrin

Contrefilet de Boeuf a la Perrin

Prepare and cook the sirloin as explained in sirloin with Jerusalem artichokes (No. 1357); glaze and dress it on a very hot dish, garnish each side with marrow canapes, prepared as follows: Have slices of toasted bread three and a half by one and three-quarter inches; lay on them several slices of blanched marrow, sprinkle over with very finely chopped chives, and set them in the oven for one minute. Garnish the sides of the dish with these, and pour over a Madeira sauce (No. 492); arrange at the two ends tomatoes prepared as follows: Plunge very ripe and firm tomatoes into boiling water, remove the skins, cut them into four parts, squeeze them slightly and lay them in a saucepan with some good butter, salt and ground pepper; cook them on a quick fire, garnish the sirloin and serve.

← No. 1352 Sirloin of Beef a la de Lesseps Beef No. 1354 Sirloin of Beef a la Thieblin →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so this entry is really three small preparations arranged around a roast. Read it as an assembly plan: the roast, the marrow canapés, the buttered tomatoes, and a Madeira sauce poured at the last minute.

The cutContrefilet is the boneless strip loin that lies along the outside of the short loin — what a butcher today sells as a New York strip roast or striploin. The book gives no weight, oven temperature or doneness here; a 4–5 lb piece, tied, roasted until the centre reads 125–130F for medium rare and then rested 20 minutes, is a modern working equivalent rather than anything the text specifies.
The missing recipesNo. 492 is the book's Madeira sauce, for which a good demi-glace or reduced veal stock finished with a few tablespoons of Madeira and butter off the heat will stand in. No. 1357, the sirloin with Jerusalem artichokes, is not reproduced here, so its method cannot be described from this page. Neither needs to be sourced literally for the dish to work.
"Glaze"In this period glazing a roast means brushing it with reduced meat glaze (glace de viande) for gloss, not browning under a broiler. A spoonful of very reduced stock, painted on just before the meat goes to the platter, does the same job.
Blanching the marrowBeef marrow must be soaked in cold salted water for several hours to draw out blood, pushed from the bone, then poached in barely simmering salted water for 2–3 minutes until firm and opaque. Water at a rolling boil melts it into the pot. Ask a butcher for centre-cut marrow bones or canoe-cut bones.
One minute means one minuteThe canapés go into a hot oven only long enough to warm the marrow through and set the chives. Longer and the marrow renders out and soaks the toast. Assemble them while the roast rests and bake them last.
The toast sizeThree and a half by one and three-quarter inches; the rectangle sits neatly along the sides of the dish, which is where the recipe puts the canapés. Cut from a firm white sandwich loaf, crusts off, toasted dry so it holds up under the sauce.
The tomatoes"A quick fire" is high heat — the quarters are meant to be sautéed briskly in butter so they hold their shape and concentrate, not stewed to sauce. Seed and drain them well after skinning or they will water down the plate.
Sauce placementThe instruction to 'pour over' comes immediately after the canapés are set along the sides, so it most likely refers to them rather than to the roast, though the text does not say so outright. The recipe gives no weight and no number of servings.

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 runs to dozens of near-identical sirloins distinguished only by garnish and by the name of the patron, actor or public figure they honoured — de Lesseps, Thieblin, Perrin sit in a row here. That naming habit is often said to have been common in the grand-restaurant kitchens of the period: the cooking was codified, so prestige is thought to have attached to the arrangement of the platter and to whose name it carried. Marrow canapés were a fashionable garnish for roast beef in the late nineteenth century, marrow being prized as a rich, mild fat that needed almost no cooking, and they appear across French service of the era alongside a Madeira-based brown sauce. The buttered tomato quarters at the ends of the dish serve as a bright, plain foil to marrow and demi-glace.