No. 1380

Chateaubriand, Plain Twenty Ounces

Chateaubriand Nature Vingt Onces

The name of Chateaubriand is given to the piece of meat taken from the middle of a large tenderloin. After it has been nicely trimmed, the Chateaubriand should weigh twenty ounces, or a pound and a quarter. Flatten it down to the thickness of an inch and a quarters, put it to cook on a broiler over a slow but regular fire for sixteen minutes if needed exceptionally rare, eighteen minutes when properly done, and twenty for well done. Serve on a hot dish with maitre d'hotel butter or gravy.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's instruction is really a specification for a cut plus a timing table. The variables he leaves out — fire strength and internal temperature — are the ones that decide the result.

The cutChateaubriand here is the center of a whole beef tenderloin, trimmed of chain and silverskin, weighing 20 oz (1 lb 4 oz). Ask a butcher for a center-cut tenderloin roast of that weight rather than two filet steaks; the point of the piece is that it is one thick slab.
Flattening"Flatten it down" means pressing the trimmed piece with the flat of a cleaver or heavy pan to an even inch and a quarter, not pounding it thin. Even thickness is what makes his timings work at all.
"A slow but regular fire"A gridiron over settled coals with no flare-up — roughly medium heat, not the searing bed you would use for a thin steak. On a gas grill that is medium, lid down; in a broiler, a rack set well back from the element.
The timingsSixteen to twenty minutes total over medium heat suits a 1.25-inch piece of this weight, turning once at the halfway mark. Ranhofer's twenty-minute "well done" may well land closer to what would now be called medium, but he gives no internal temperatures, and what the timings actually produce depends entirely on the fire.
Judge by temperatureAn instant-read thermometer in the thickest part is more reliable than the clock: about 120-125F for rare, 130-135F for medium-rare, 140-145F for medium. Pull it 5F short, since a piece this thick carries over.
Rest and carveRest 8 to 10 minutes on the hot dish before slicing, then carve across the grain into half-inch slices. Skipping the rest on a piece this thick loses a visible amount of juice to the platter.
Maitre d'hotel butterSoftened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, rolled and chilled, then sliced onto the hot meat. The "gravy" alternative is simply the beef's own juices, not a thickened sauce.
YieldTwenty ounces of trimmed tenderloin serves two generously, or three as part of a longer menu; the recipe itself specifies no number of covers.

A Little History

The cut is named for François-René de Chateaubriand, the writer and diplomat, and the attribution is traditional rather than documented — the story usually credits his chef with the dish in the 1820s or 1830s, and the name is attached to the double-thick center-cut tenderloin from at least the middle of the century. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, treats it as a standard of the trade: The Epicurean (1894) gives a run of numbered chateaubriands, each with a different garnish or sauce, and this one is the plain benchmark against which the others are set — nature, meaning unadorned, with only butter or its own gravy. The insistence on an exact twenty ounces the recipe leaves unexplained.