No. 1400

Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Baillard

Mignons de Filet de Boeuf a la Baillard

First cook the minions the same as for the plain (No. 1399); dress them flat on a very hot dish; on each minion lay a piece of foies-gras removing it from the terrine with a spoon. Cover the whole with good Madeira sauce (No. 492) to which has been added truffles cut in fine Julienne and fresh mushrooms.

← No. 1399 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef—Plain Beef No. 1401 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Cheron →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish formula rather than a full recipe: Ranhofer assumes you already have the plain mignons of No. 1399 and the Madeira sauce of No. 492 in hand. Read it as an assembly, and settle the sauce before the beef goes in the pan.

What a mignon isSmall rounds cut from the tail end of the tenderloin, typically in the region of 2 to 3 oz each and under an inch thick. Ranhofer gives no weight or yield here; the number per person is left to the cook.
The two cross-referencesNo. 1399 is the plain method for the medallions, sautéed quickly; No. 492 is Ranhofer's Madeira sauce, a brown-sauce preparation rather than a pan gravy. Neither is reproduced here, and neither can be improvised at the last minute, which is why the sauce is made first.
Foies-gras from the terrineRanhofer means cooked foie gras terrine, lifted out cold in a spoon-shaped scoop and set on the hot meat to soften rather than melt. Modern equivalents are foie gras au torchon or a good bloc; a slice of seared fresh liver is a different dish and will render into the sauce.
Truffles "cut in fine Julienne"Matchstick shreds of black truffle, added to the finished sauce off direct heat so the aroma is not cooked away. Preserved truffle in its juice is the closest cheap stand-in; truffle oil is not.
Fresh mushroomsIn 1894 New York these would be cultivated mushrooms of the period, cream- or brown-capped rather than the modern white button, and not cheap. Trim, slice or quarter them and cook them separately in butter before they go into the sauce, or they will thin it with their liquid.
"A very hot dish"Not incidental. Tenderloin this thin loses its heat in seconds, and the plate is what keeps the foie gras yielding and the sauce glossy. Warm the serving dish in a low oven while the meat rests.
Order of workSauce held warm, mushrooms cooked, truffles cut, foie gras portioned and still cold, then the beef seared last and dressed immediately. Once the medallions leave the pan there is no pause anywhere in the sequence.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book's structure shows the kitchen it came from: one plain preparation followed by dozens of numbered variations, each distinguished only by its garnish and sauce. The mignon itself is a French restaurant cut, the small tail-end medallion that cooks fast enough for à la minute service, and the pairing of tenderloin with foie gras, truffle and Madeira is the standard grand-cuisine trio of the period, the same combination that underlies the more famous Rossini garnish. Who Baillard was is not clear to a modern reader; Ranhofer names dishes after patrons, colleagues and public figures throughout, and many of those names were already obscure a generation later. The tell-tale detail is "fresh mushrooms" singled out as a distinguishing feature.