No. 1365

Rib Steak a la Royer

Entrecote a la Royer

Cut from the thin covered part of a rib piece slices which when pared will weigh one pound and a quarter; season them with salt, rub them over with oil, and broil them over a rather quick fire from eighteen to twenty-two minutes. Dress them on a dish, and cover with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413), into which incorporate a piece of good butter and some chopped up truffles. Garnish around the steak with stuffed mushroom heads (No. 650).

← No. 1364 Rib Steak a la Bercy Beef No. 1366 Round Steak with Water-Cress →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's entrecôte is a straightforward broiled steak dressed with demi-glace, butter and truffle; almost everything that needs translating is in the cut, the fire and the sauce numbers.

The cut"The thin covered part of a rib piece" most likely means the outer muscle lying over the eye, close to what a butcher today might call the ribeye cap or deckle; the wording is not precise enough to be certain. In practice a boneless ribeye of about an inch and a half thick will come near the pound and a quarter he asks for.
YieldA pared pound and a quarter of boneless beef is a steak for two, sliced across the grain to serve; note that Ranhofer writes of "slices" in the plural, so the weight may cover the portion rather than one piece.
The fireA "rather quick fire" means live coals burnt down to a steady red glow, hot enough to sear but not flaming. Under a modern gas broiler set to high, the rack should sit about four inches from the element.
TimingEighteen to twenty-two minutes over direct heat will take a steak of this size well past medium on a modern grill, which suggests his fire behaved differently from ours; cook to an internal temperature instead — 125–130°F for medium-rare — and expect roughly eight to twelve minutes total for a thick cut, turned once.
Half-glazeNo. 413 is Ranhofer's half-glaze, i.e. demi-glace, which in classical practice means espagnole reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. A good commercial demi-glace or a hard-reduced beef stock stands in. Whisk the butter in off the heat so the sauce stays glossy rather than breaking.
TrufflesBlack truffle, chopped fine and added at the end so the heat only warms it; the recipe does not say whether fresh or preserved, and preserved truffle or peelings is the honest substitute. Truffle oil is not one, and will flatten the sauce.
Stuffed mushroom headsNo. 650 is Ranhofer's stuffed mushroom garnish, a caps-and-forcemeat preparation of the kind usually built on duxelles. Large cremini caps, stemmed, filled with duxelles bound with a little of the same demi-glace, and given fifteen minutes at 375°F will serve.
RestingThe recipe sends the steak straight from the grill to the dish. Give it five minutes before saucing, or the juices will thin the half-glaze on the platter.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized like a professional kitchen rather than a home cookbook — hence the cross-references to numbered sauces and garnishes, which assume a brigade with a stockpot already going. The rib steak section runs through a long series of à la treatments distinguished almost entirely by their sauce and garnish: Bercy with shallot butter, Bordelaise with marrow, and here Royer with demi-glace, butter and truffle. Names of this kind in Ranhofer are often said to honor a patron, a colleague or an occasion, and many of them are now untraceable; Royer is one such. What the dish records is the American steakhouse in its most Frenchified moment, when the point of a rib steak was not the beef alone but the sauce work stacked on top of it.