No. 1396

Minced Tenderloin a la Beekman

Emince de Filet de Boeuf a la Beekman

Cut into thin slices six ounces of cold tenderloin of beef, either roasted or braised. Place in a saucepan a few spoonfuls of brown sauce (No. 414), boil and skim; add a pinch of cayenne pepper, a little Worcestershire sauce, half as much mushroom catsup, then the slices of beef. Cover the saucepan, set it in the oven, but do not allow the liquid to boil, as it hardens the meat, then when the tenderloin is quite warm, serve it lengthwise on a dish. Strain the sauce through a fine strainer, covering the meat with it.

← No. 1395 Minced Tenderloin of Beef a la Andrews Beef No. 1397 Minced Tenderloin, Creole Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's dish for using up yesterday's roast: cold beef warmed through in a sharpened brown sauce, never simmered. Six ounces of meat is a single generous portion or a light course for two.

The hinge: no boilingAlready-cooked tenderloin that boils in sauce seizes and turns grey and stringy. Ranhofer gives no temperature; a low oven (around 250-275F) works, and the pan should come out as soon as the slices are hot through, which takes only a few minutes.
Brown sauce No. 414Ranhofer's own brown sauce, of the Espagnole type built on a brown roux and meat stock. A well-reduced demi-glace, or a good beef stock thickened lightly and skimmed of fat, stands in. You want a few spoonfuls only, enough to coat.
Boil and skimThe instruction is not decorative. Bringing the sauce up and skimming pulls fat and scum to the surface before the beef goes in, so the finished coating is glossy rather than greasy.
Mushroom catsupA thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, nothing like tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British grocers; a splash of mushroom soy or a spoonful of soaked-dried-mushroom liquor with a little soy gives the same savoury depth. Use half the quantity of the Worcestershire, as written.
SlicingDespite the title, nothing is minced in the modern sense. Emince means thinly sliced. Cut the cold beef across the grain as thin as you can manage, which also means it warms faster.
Reheating cooked beefCurrent food-safety practice is to bring leftover meat to 165F. The dish is designed to stop short of that so the tenderloin stays rosy, so work with beef that has been properly chilled and use it within a day or two.
ServingThe slices go lengthwise down the dish and are then masked with the sauce strained through a fine strainer, which leaves a cleaner coating.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is full of dishes bearing the names of the restaurant's patrons and of the city's old Knickerbocker families; the Beekmans were among the most prominent of them, and Beekman Place and Beekman Street both carry the name. Whether this particular dish honoured a specific diner or simply borrowed the family's cachet is not recorded. What it shows plainly is how a great kitchen handled the cold roast tenderloin left from the previous service: not disguised in a hash, but sliced thin, warmed in a spoonful of the house Espagnole sharpened with the two bottled English sauces that professional kitchens of the period seem commonly to have kept to hand, and sent out as a proper entree. The three consecutive numbers here "a la Andrews," "a la Beekman," and "Creole Style" are variations on one technique, which is how the book is built throughout.