No. 1413

Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef a la Fleurette

Noisettes de Filet de Boeuf a la Fleurette

Prepare the noisettes as explained in noisettes plain (No. 1410), season them and lay them on a dish, pour over them a little cold cooked marinade (No. 114), and some Madeira wine. Let macerate for three hours, then drain and dry them on a cloth. Saute them in butter, and when properly done, after seven minutes, remove and glaze them. Drain the butter from the stewpan, put in a little half-glaze (No. 413), reduce, while adding the marinade, a very little at the time, and when nicely reduced, finish with a little good cream. Strain the whole through a tammy (No. 159) and mix in some finely minced chives. Place each noisette on a thin slice of bread, browned in butter, lay them on a dish and cover each with the gravy.

← No. 1412 Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef a la Bonnefo Beef No. 1414 Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef a la Magny →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stocked larder, so the recipe is mostly cross-references. Once you supply a demi-glace and a cooked marinade, it is a fast saute with a pan sauce.

What a noisette isA trimmed round cut from the tenderloin, tied or pressed into shape; Ranhofer sends the reader to No. 1410 for the cutting. Modern practice is roughly 2 inches across and 1 to 1 1/4 inches thick, about 3 oz, and two per person, though the book specifies no size.
The cooked marinadeNo. 114 is a marinade cuite, a wine-and-vinegar liquid simmered with root vegetables and aromatics (typically carrot, onion, thyme, bay, parsley stems, peppercorns) and then cooled. Ranhofer specifies it cold, and the three hours are best passed under refrigeration rather than on the counter.
Dry the meat properlyThis is the hinge. Three hours in an acidic marinade leaves the surface wet, and wet meat steams rather than browns. Blot hard on a cloth or paper and let the noisettes sit uncovered a few minutes before they meet the butter.
Seven minutesRanhofer's figure. That suits a roughly 1-inch noisette taken to rare or medium-rare; the text says only "when properly done." Judge by an instant-read thermometer at 125-130F rather than the clock; a thicker cut will need longer and a thinner one less.
GlazingTo "glaze" here means to coat the cooked noisettes with reduced meat glaze (glace de viande) for gloss, sometimes flashed under a salamander to set the shine. A spoonful of demi-glace reduced to syrup does the same job.
Half-glazeNo. 413 is demi-glace, a brown sauce reduced with stock. A good reduced veal or beef stock, thickened slightly, stands in. Add the marinade a spoonful at a time as directed, tasting as you go, or the acid and vinegar will take over.
The tammyA tammy (No. 159) is a fine worsted cloth the sauce was forced through with two people twisting the ends. A chinois with a ladle, or a fine mesh strainer, gives the same result.
Cream and chivesFinish the cream off the boil so the sauce does not break, and stir the chives in at the last second; held over heat they go grey and lose their point.
The croutonsRanhofer asks only for thin slices of bread browned in butter. Cutting them as rounds the diameter of the noisettes, thin, and frying in clarified butter until dry and golden works well. They are there to catch the sauce, so brown them ahead and keep them crisp.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in a run of noisette preparations beginning at No. 1410, each a variation on the same seared round of fillet with a different garnish and sauce. The noisette itself, literally "little nut," is a French butcher's and restaurant cut that suited a la carte service: portioned, quick to cook, and expensive, which is exactly why it multiplies in a Delmonico's book. "A la fleurette" points to the cream — thin fresh cream is crème fleurette in French kitchen usage — and the naming convention, a personal or descriptive tag attached to a base preparation, is broadly the same system Escoffier would later set out in the Guide Culinaire (1903). The three-hour maceration in cooked marinade and Madeira is an older habit carried into a modern cut: marinades of this kind were long associated with tougher or gamier meat, and here work as seasoning on a piece of beef that needs no tenderising.