No. 1405

Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Salvini

Mignons de Filet de Boeuf a la Salvini

Prepare and cook the minions as for plain (No. 1399), lay them on a dish, glaze them, and place on top of each minion a slice of plainly cooked duck's liver the same shape, but smaller than the minion, and on top of each piece of liver, a slice of black truffle. Cover the minions with an allemande sauce (No. 407), with parmesan cheese, adding to it some minced mushrooms and chopped parsley. Brown in a very hot oven or under a gas salamander (Fig. 123).

← No. 1404 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Meyerbeer Beef No. 1406 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Stanley →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with sauces already standing in the larder, so this reads as an assembly note rather than a full recipe. Almost everything you need is behind a cross-reference.

What a "minion" isMignons de filet are medallions cut from the tenderloin, trimmed round. Ranhofer gives no dimensions or serving count in this entry.
The missing base recipeNo. 1399 is the plain preparation of these mignons, cooked quickly and simply. Nothing in this dish cooks the beef further except the brief browning at the end, so pull them a shade underdone.
Glaze"Glaze them" means brushing with glace de viande, veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup. A few tablespoons of heavily reduced demi-glace does the same job; it is there for gloss and depth, not moisture.
Duck's liverRanhofer most likely means fattened duck liver (foie gras), sliced and cooked plainly and briefly. Ordinary duck liver works and is far cheaper, but it wants gentler handling or it turns grainy.
Allemande sauceNo. 407 is a veal velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison and lemon. It must not boil after the yolks go in or it will break. Once the parmesan, minced mushrooms and parsley are stirred in it should coat a spoon thickly enough to sit on the meat without running off.
Salamander, and the oven numberA gas salamander is an overhead broiler. Ranhofer gives no temperature; "a very hot oven" means as hot as you have, and the point is speed: the sauce should spot brown in a minute or two under a preheated broiler. Any longer and the beef overcooks and the egg-thickened sauce curdles.
TruffleBlack winter truffle, sliced thin. Preserved truffle in its own juice is the practical substitute; truffle oil is not the same thing and will read as artificial against the plain liver.
Assembly orderHave beef, liver, sauce and broiler all ready at once. Build on an ovenproof serving dish, sauce, then straight under the heat, then to the table.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its beef chapter is full of dishes named for the singers, actors and financiers who ate there. This one honors Tommaso Salvini, the Italian tragedian whose Othello and Hamlet drew enormous audiences on repeated American tours from the 1870s onward; naming a garnish after a visiting performer was standard flattery in the period, and the neighboring entries for Meyerbeer and Stanley belong to the same habit. The construction itself, a round of tenderloin topped with foie gras and truffle, is the same logic as tournedos Rossini, and by Ranhofer's day it was less an invention than a house grammar: the cook chose a garnish, a sauce and a name, and the combination became a dish. The gratinated allemande with parmesan is the detail that dates it, since a rich egg-thickened sauce browned over red meat fell out of fashion well before the middle of the next century.