No. 1389

Grenadins of Tenderloin Marc Aurele

Grenadins de Filet de Boeuf a la Marc Aurele

Prepare a pate-a-chou (No. 132); spread from a pocket on a baking sheet pieces an inch and a quarter in diameter; when they are cooked they should be about two inches in diameter. Egg them twice with a soft brush and dredge over the half of them some grated parmesan cheese, and the other half finely chopped truffles. Bake them in a slow oven until dry. Remove them from the baking sheet, and cut off all the bottoms. Fill those covered with cheese, with small macaroni cut in quarter inch lengths mixed with tongue cut in quarter inch squares, season and add a little veloute (No. 415), some butter, mignonette pepper and nutmeg, then toss in a saucepan without using a spoon. Fill those covered with truffles with a little macedoine of vegetables cut ball-shaped, each a quarter of an inch in diameter. Push through a cornet at the edge of the opening of the choux a row of chicken forcemeat (No. 89). Restore the bottoms and fasten them on with chicken forcemeat, lay them on a plate in the oven for one minute to poach the forcemeat. Cook the grenadins the same as for plain (No. 1384); when done, drain and arrange them in a row, garnishing one side of the dish with maccaroni and parmesan choux, and the other with the macedoine and truffles. Serve a Colbert sauce (No. 451) at the same time.

← No. 1388 Grenadins of Tenderloin As Venison, Poivrade Beef No. 1390 Grenadins of Tenderloin, Paladio →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a composed garnish plate from Ranhofer's Epicurean, written for a brigade that already had stock, velouté and forcemeat standing by. Read it as three separate jobs — the beef, the choux cases, the two fillings — and it becomes manageable in a home kitchen.

What a grenadin isA grenadin is a small, thick medallion cut from the tenderloin, larded with strips of fat pork across the top, then braised in a little stock and basted until the surface glazes. It is not a grilled steak; this recipe defers to the plain treatment at No. 1384, which is not reproduced here. No size is given for the medallions themselves — the two-inch measurement in the text refers to the baked choux.
The cross-referencesNothing here works without four other numbers: pâte-à-chou (No. 132), chicken forcemeat (No. 89), velouté (No. 415) and Colbert sauce (No. 451). Substitute a standard choux paste, a mousseline of chicken breast blitzed with cream and egg white, any decent velouté, and for Colbert a meat glaze finished with butter, lemon, chopped parsley and a little Madeira.
Slow ovenFor the choux shells, a slow oven; around 300F is a reasonable modern reading, though the book itself gives no temperatures. They are being dried out rather than browned, since the coating of cheese or truffle will colour long before the interior sets. Leave them in until they sound hollow and feel light, then cool completely before cutting the bottoms off.
"Egg them twice with a soft brush"Two thin coats of beaten egg, the second once the first has set, so the parmesan and truffle have something to grip. A heavy single coat runs down the sides and glues the shells to the sheet.
Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked white pepper; the name is usually said to come from a resemblance to mignonette seed, though that explanation is traditional rather than documented. Cracked black pepper is the practical stand-in, though it will speck a pale filling.
"Toss in a saucepan without using a spoon"Bind the macaroni and tongue by tossing the pan, not stirring. A spoon breaks the quarter-inch tubes and turns the mixture pasty; this is the one instruction in the filling that matters.
Cornet and macedoineA cornet is a small paper piping cone; a fine plain nozzle in a pastry bag does the same work. Macedoine here means vegetables cut to uniform quarter-inch balls — carrot and turnip scooped with the smallest parisienne cutter, plus peas, cooked separately so each keeps its colour.
Poaching the forcemeatOne minute in the oven is enough only if the shells are warm and the forcemeat is piped thin. Give the assembled choux several minutes in a moderate oven and check that the seam is firm and cooked through, since raw chicken mousseline will not set from residual heat alone.
YieldNo quantities are given. Figure two grenadins and two choux, one of each kind, per person; a plate for six wants twelve shells baked.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades in the kitchen at Delmonico's, and the book's beef chapter shows how far a New York restaurant of that period would go to distinguish one tenderloin from another: the numbers on either side of this one offer the same cut dressed as venison and dressed "Paladio." The dedication names are part of the system. Marcus Aurelius here signals nothing about Roman cooking — nineteenth-century French kitchens routinely attached the names of emperors, composers and patrons to garnishes, and a title functioned as shorthand for a specific accompaniment rather than as a historical claim. What actually defines the dish is the pair of stuffed choux, one cheese and one truffle, a conceit that belongs to the era of the elaborate garniture, when a plate was expected to present two contrasting fillings in matching vessels. Grenadins themselves are the older element: the technique of larding and glazing small cuts is generally traced to eighteenth-century French practice, where it kept lean meat moist through a long braise, and it survived into the restaurant kitchen chiefly for the lacquered appearance it produced.