No. 1377

Delmonico Sirloin Steak, Spanish Style

Bifteck de Contrefilet Delmonico a l'Espagnole

Prepare and cook the sirloin steak as described for plain (No. 1375). Chop up separately a quarter of a pound of lean beef free of sinews, and the same quantity of fresh pork. Mix these together with a tablespoonful of cooked fine herbs (No. 385), and one egg-yolk; season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then divide the preparation into four parts; roll it on a floured table into balls, flatten them to half an inch thick, then dip them in beaten eggs, and roll them in bread-crumbs; smooth this with the blade of a knife; plunge them into very hot fat for two minutes to brown the outsides. Drain and lay them one beside the other in a sautoir moistening them to their height with half-glaze sauce (No. 413), and let simmer for three-quarters of an hour, basting them frequently. Brown in oil four ounces of minced onions, add to it four ounces of finely minced green peppers, one clove of garlic, half a pound of peeled tomatoes cut in four and pressed; let cook together and reduce with a little brown sauce (No. 414) and gravy (No. 404). Lay the garnishing on the bottom of a dish, the glazed steak on top, and the hash balls over, one overlapping the other.

← No. 1376 Delmonico Sirloin Steak a la Perigueux Beef No. 1378 Sirloin Steak for Gourmets; Extra Forty Ounc →

For the Modern Kitchen

A plain grilled strip steak dressed up with a pepper-and-tomato garnish and four braised meat cakes. The work is in the cross-references, which assume you have a classical kitchen's sauces already made.

ContrefiletThe cut is the boneless strip loin, what an American butcher sells as New York strip or shell steak. The plain version is at No. 1375, not reproduced here; this entry refers to the finished steak as "glazed".
Half-glaze and brown sauceHalf-glaze (No. 413) is demi-glace, and brown sauce (No. 414) is espagnole. The "gravy" of No. 404 is reduced roast beef juice, not a thickened flour gravy. A good unsalted veal or beef stock reduced to a syrupy consistency stands in for all three, but salt only at the end since reduction concentrates it fast.
Cooked fine herbsNo. 385 is fines herbes sweated in butter until soft, typically shallot, mushroom and parsley, sometimes with a splash of wine reduced away. A tablespoon of finely chopped mushroom and shallot cooked down in butter, cooled before it meets the egg yolk, does the job.
SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan wide enough to hold the four cakes in a single layer with the sauce coming up to their tops. A 10-inch pan is about right for this quantity.
The frying stepTwo minutes in very hot fat, around 375F, is only to set and colour the crumb coating. The cakes are not meant to cook through here; the braise does that.
Forty-five minutes of braisingHalf a pound of raw meat divided into four half-inch cakes will be fully cooked long before this. The long simmer is for flavour exchange with the demi-glace and for the glaze that basting builds up. Keep the liquid at a bare tremble and baste every ten minutes or the crumb crust goes to mush on top and the meat dries.
Peeled tomatoes cut in four and pressedQuarter them and squeeze out the seeds and watery jelly before cooking, so the garnish reduces to a thick mass rather than a sauce.
YieldRanhofer gives no serving count. Four hash balls and a single sirloin cut for a hotel platter suggest four portions; the garnish quantities are right for that.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it reads like a working kitchen's index rather than a domestic cookbook, which is why nearly every line here points to another number. Ranhofer built out whole families of dishes, with neighbouring entries such as "à la Périgueux" distinguished largely by their garnish and sauce. À l'espagnole in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage generally signalled tomato, sweet pepper, garlic and onion, the produce associated with Spanish cooking, and the term sits somewhat awkwardly beside sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce, which is a separate thing entirely and also turns up in the recipe. The braised, crumbed meat cakes are a thrift device made grand: chopped beef and pork bound with egg yolk, here promoted to a garnish for a sirloin.