No. 1370
Small Sirloin Steak a la Bordelaise
Bifteck de Contrefilet a la Bordelaise
Ranhofer writes in shorthand: the entry is really an instruction to broil a strip steak plainly and sauce it. Almost all the work sits in the two cross-references.
- What cut this isContrefilet is the boneless top loin — what a US butcher sells as strip loin, New York strip or, in the UK, sirloin. "Small" here simply distinguishes a single-portion steak from a whole roasting piece; the book gives no weight or thickness.
- The plain steak (No. 1368)The method is not reproduced here; the reader is sent to the plain preparation for it. Cooked over a very hot grill or in a very hot pan, an internal temperature of 125-130F gives rare to medium-rare.
- Bordelaise sauce (No. 436)Broadly a red-wine reduction with shallot and herbs, finished with a brown stock-based sauce. Note that Ranhofer lists the marrow-garnished version separately as No. 1371, so the sauce called for here need not include marrow.
- Order of workHave the sauce reduced and holding warm before the steak goes on the heat. A broiled steak will not wait; a wine reduction will.
- ServingOne steak per person, sauce spooned over or, if you would rather keep the crust dry, poured onto the plate first. The dish should be sent out hot, on a warmed plate.
The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its numbered, cross-referenced structure is the book working as a professional kitchen manual rather than a home cookbook — the reader is assumed to have the plain steak and the sauce already in hand. Sauce bordelaise takes its name from Bordeaux and its red wine, and by the later nineteenth century the version garnished with poached beef marrow was widely met with in French restaurant cooking. That an American restaurant kitchen listed a whole family of variations on a single strip steak — Bearnaise, Bordelaise, Bordelaise with marrow — shows how completely the Delmonico's repertoire was built on French codified sauces.