No. 1408

Minions of Tenderloin of Beef with Cepes a la Bordelaise

Mignons de Filet de Boeuf aux Cepes a la Bordelaise

Prepare and cook the minions as indicated in plain minions (No. 1399). Glaze and garnish them around with a garnishing of cepes a la bordelaise made as follows: Choose medium sized cepes, not too large, remove the stalks, and trim them without altering their shape. Pour some oil in a pan, and when hot, throw in the cepes, color, season, and reduce the moisture. Finish cooking them with a Madeira sauce (No. 492), some chopped parsley, and a little garlic crushed and chopped fine. Serve at the same time a sauce-boat of Madeira sauce.

← No. 1407 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef a la Vernon Beef No. 1409 Minions of Tenderloin of Beef with Chestnuts →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, glaze and a Madeira sauce standing by, so the page is mostly the garnish. Read it as two operations: sear and glaze the medallions, and cook the mushrooms separately in oil before finishing them in sauce.

What a "minion" isMignons de filet are medallions cut from the tenderloin, roughly 1 to 1.5 inches thick and 4 to 6 oz each — what a butcher today sells as filet mignon or tournedos. Figure one or two per person, so 6 to 8 medallions for four people.
The cross-referencesNo. 1399 is plain mignons; this page does not reproduce the method, so it must be consulted directly, but the operation is a straightforward sauté of the medallions. No. 492 is Ranhofer's Madeira sauce, a half-glaze finished with Madeira. A good bought demi-glace loosened with a couple of tablespoons of Madeira off the heat covers it.
GlazeTo glaze here means brushing the cooked medallions with meat glaze — stock reduced to a syrup — for shine, not putting them under a grill. A spoonful of reduced demi-glace does the same job.
CèpesCèpes are Boletus edulis, sold as porcini. Fresh ones are seasonal and expensive; 1 to 1.5 lb serves four. Dried porcini rehydrated will not hold their shape for this treatment — use fresh, or substitute firm cremini and accept a different dish.
À la bordelaise, in this senseThe name usually means red wine and marrow, but with cèpes it means the Bordeaux mushroom treatment: oil (Ranhofer specifies only 'some oil'), garlic and parsley. The garlic and parsley go in at the finishing stage, with the Madeira sauce, rather than at the start.
"Reduce the moisture"Cèpes throw a lot of water. Cook them in a wide pan in hot oil, in batches if need be, until the liquid has gone and the edges color; crowding steams them grey. Only then add the Madeira sauce, and only enough to coat.
TrimmingRemove the stalks and pare the caps without reshaping them. The stalks are good chopped fine and cooked with the caps, or saved for the sauce.
ServiceThe recipe says to garnish the glazed mignons around with the cèpes, so the mushrooms ring the medallions; a sauce-boat of Madeira sauce goes alongside.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in numbered order — hence the cross-references, which assume a cook with the sauces already made. This particular pairing shows how thoroughly the American luxury kitchen of the 1890s ran on French regional shorthand: à la bordelaise covers several unrelated preparations, and when it attaches to cèpes it means the southwestern habit of cooking them in oil with garlic and parsley rather than in butter. Fresh cèpes were seasonal and much of the supply reached American kitchens dried or preserved, which is one reason a dish built on their texture reads as expensive.