No. 1385

Grenadins of Tenderloin a la Beaumarchais

Grenadins de Filet de Boeuf a la Beaumarchais

Cook the prepared grenadins the same as for plain (No. 1384); drain off half the butter, and to the remainder add a coffeespoonful of finely chopped, blanched, and drained shallot, fry this colorless, then put in a little veloute (No. 415), and thicken with egg-yolks; butter well with good, fresh butter, and add some meat glaze (No. 402), and lemon juice; strain through a tammy; now mix into the sauce a little chopped parsley. Pour the sauce on the dish intended for serving the grenadins, and arrange them either in a straight row or in a circle; surround with as many croustades as there are grenadins, these croustades to be filled with mushrooms stewed in cream. Serve a slightly thickened half-glaze sauce (No. 413) separately.

← No. 1384 Grenadins of Tenderloin Plain Five Ounces Beef No. 1386 Grenadins of Tenderloin a la Boniface →

For the Modern Kitchen

A plate of larded tenderloin medallions with an egg-thickened velouté, built on three other numbered recipes in Ranhofer's book. Read those first: the dish is mostly assembly and sauce.

The hinge: the yolksOnce the egg yolks go into the velouté the sauce must not boil, or it will scramble and break. Hold it below a simmer, work off the direct heat, and finish the butter in small pieces so the emulsion stays smooth.
What a grenadin isA small, thick medallion cut from the tenderloin, traditionally larded with strips of pork fat and often braised or shallow-fried. The listing for No. 1384 mentions five ounces of beef, though this recipe gives no per-portion weight; the croustades are specified one per grenadin.
CoffeespoonfulSmaller than a modern teaspoon — figure a scant half teaspoon of chopped shallot. "Fry this colorless" means sweat it in butter without letting it take any color at all.
Velouté, glaze, half-glazeNo. 415 is a white stock sauce thickened with roux; No. 402 is meat glaze, stock reduced to a syrup, so use a spoonful and taste — it is intensely salty. No. 413, the half-glaze served separately, is a brown sauce; a good demi-glace stands in.
TammyA tammy is a woven cloth the sauce was wrung through. A fine chinois or a sieve lined with muslin does the same job. Strain before the parsley goes in, as directed, or you will strain the parsley out.
CroustadesSmall pastry or fried-bread cases, one per grenadin. Fill them with the creamed mushrooms at the last moment so they do not soften.
ServingThe sauce goes on the platter first and the meat on top of it, as directed. Everything must be hot and the plates hot — an egg-thickened sauce sets and dulls quickly as it cools.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is less a cookbook than a working reference for a large professional kitchen: thousands of numbered preparations, each leaning on the sauces and stocks numbered elsewhere. This entry is typical of the book's method of variation — the plain grenadins of No. 1384 reappear in a run of further recipes under different names, changed only by garnish and sauce. Names like à la Beaumarchais, borrowed from the author of The Barber of Seville, were the French kitchen's ordinary way of labelling a set garnish, with no known connection between the figure and the dish itself. What the recipe really records is the nineteenth-century restaurant grammar of yolk-and-butter finished velouté, meat glaze for depth, and a separate sauceboat of demi-glace, all of it dependent on a stockpot running continuously in the background.