No. 1364

Rib Steak a la Bercy

Entrecote a la Bercy

Take the chuck-ribs of prime beef, these lying under the shoulder. Bone and cut in slices an inch and a half in thickness. This meat requires to be beaten in order to be made tender, then lay it either in oil or melted butter; season with salt and mignonette pepper, and broil on a very slow fire for twenty or twenty-five minutes. When the meat is done, set it on a very hot dish, and pour over the following sauce; Put into a saucepan two medium sized finely chopped shallots, some finely chopped marrow, the same quantity of butter and as much meat glaze (No. 402), salt, pepper, lemon juice and chopped parsley. Let cook rapidly on a very hot fire for one minute, place the steak on a very warm dish, and pour the Bercy sauce over.

← No. 1363 Double Porterhouse Steak a la Sanford Beef No. 1365 Rib Steak a la Royer →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is grilling a cheap, hard-working cut and compensating with fat, mechanical tenderizing and a rich compound-butter sauce. Two things carry the dish: getting the beef genuinely tender, and not breaking the sauce in that one minute on the fire.

The cut"Chuck-ribs lying under the shoulder" points to the shoulder end of the ribs, roughly what is sold today as boneless chuck eye steak or chuck under-blade. It is flavorful but seamed with connective tissue, which is why he calls for pounding; a rib eye needs none of this treatment.
Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked peppercorns, traditionally white, sometimes a white-and-black mix. Crack them yourself in a mortar or under a pan; preground pepper gives none of the texture the name implies.
Meat glaze, No. 402Glace de viande: brown stock reduced until it sets to a syrupy jelly. A tablespoon of good demi-glace, or commercial glace de viande, stands in. Do not substitute a bouillon cube, which is mostly salt and will wreck the seasoning.
MarrowAsk for cut marrow bones, soak them in cold salted water to draw the blood, push the marrow out, and dice it. It should be added cold and chopped fine so it melts into the sauce rather than sitting in lumps.
The sauce is an emulsionThe hinge of the dish. Shallots, marrow, butter and glaze held over high heat for a bare minute are meant to come together creamy; let it boil hard or sit on the burner and the butter splits into oil. Take it off the heat, add the lemon juice and parsley, and swirl.
Twenty to twenty-five minutesThat is a well-done steak on a slow grill, which is what chuck of this thickness usually wants. If you prefer it pink, a 1.5-inch chuck steak reaches medium-rare at about 130F internal in roughly 12-15 minutes over moderate heat, turning once, but the sinew will be chewier.
Broiling"A very slow fire" means dying coals with no flame, not a domestic broiler element at full blast. A cast-iron grill pan over medium heat, or a charcoal grill set up for indirect cooking, is nearer the mark.
ServingA steak of this thickness will generally serve two; carve across the grain on the hot dish before the sauce goes over. Warm the platter properly; the sauce congeals fast on cold china.

A Little History

Bercy was the wine quarter of eastern Paris, a district of warehouses and cellars outside the city's customs barrier where wine was landed off the Seine and taxed. The quarter and its wine trade are traditionally credited with giving their name to a family of nineteenth-century preparations built on a white-wine and shallot reduction: sauce Bercy for fish, and for beef the beurre Bercy of shallots, marrow, parsley and lemon. Ranhofer, running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and compiling The Epicurean, published in 1894 as a record of that kitchen, drops the wine entirely here and leans on meat glaze instead, which is characteristic of his approach: a Paris-trained chef writing for an American house where reduced brown stock was always at hand. The choice of chuck rib is also telling. A book full of terrapin and canvasback still gives careful instruction on how to make a shoulder cut worth serving, and does it by beating the meat, oiling it, cooking it slowly and drowning it in marrow butter.