No. 1417

Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef a la Rossini

Noisettes de Filet de Boeuf a la Rossini

These noisettes are prepared and cooked the same as for plain noisettes (No. 1410). Glaze and lay them on small slices of bread, a quarter of an inch thick, and the same diameter as the noisettes fried in butter. Choose some very large white, chicken livers, cut them into thick slices, saute them in some butter, and set a slice on each noisette, and on top of this a fine round slice of truffle. Mask the whole with a Madeira sauce (No. 492), with essence of truffle (No. 395) added to it.

← No. 1416 Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef a la Nicoise Beef No. 1418 Noisettes of Tenderloin of Beef in Surprise →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand, assuming you have the rest of The Epicurean open beside you: the dish is really an assembly of four components, three of which live at other numbers in the book. Read it as a garnish rather than a method.

What a noisette isRounds cut from the trimmed tenderloin, conventionally around 2 inches across and an inch or so thick, one or two per serving. No. 1410 is the plain preparation this recipe defers to: sauteed in butter over brisk heat, a few minutes a side for rare to medium-rare.
"Glaze" means glace de viandeNot a sugar glaze. A spoonful of heavily reduced brown veal stock, brushed on the cooked noisette so it shines. Reduced demi-glace or a good commercial veal glace does the job.
The Madeira sauceNo. 492 is Ranhofer's Madeira sauce, a brown sauce built on reduced veal stock and finished with Madeira, not a pan sauce thrown together at the last minute. A dry Madeira suits it better than a sweet Malmsey.
Essence of truffleNo. 395 is truffle peelings and trimmings simmered in Madeira or stock and strained, the period's way of stretching an expensive ingredient. The liquid from a jar of preserved truffles, reduced with the Madeira, is the practical stand-in.
"Very large white chicken livers"Ranhofer is asking for pale, fat-swollen livers, chosen for their resemblance to foie gras. A slice of duck or goose foie gras is a close modern equivalent; if you use chicken livers, choose the palest and largest you can find.
Liver timingSliced thick and sauteed hard, chicken livers go grainy in well under five minutes. Poultry liver should nonetheless be cooked through rather than left bloody in the centre -- campylobacter concentrates in the organ -- so slice thin enough that firm and just-set arrive at the same moment.
The croutonsCut the bread rounds to the exact diameter of the noisettes and fry them in butter until crisp all the way through. A soft crouton collapses under the sauce and the whole construction slumps.
Assembly orderCrouton, glazed noisette, liver, truffle slice, sauce over the top. Sauce the plate at the last second; everything here is stacked, and it will not wait.

A Little History

The Rossini garnish -- foie gras, truffle and a Madeira-scented brown sauce over a piece of beef tenderloin -- is traditionally credited to the composer Gioachino Rossini, who spent his later decades in Paris with a well-documented enthusiasm for the table, though the specific stories about which chef built the dish for him are the kind that get retold more often than sourced. What is certain is that by the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean in 1894 out of his decades at Delmonico's in New York, "a la Rossini" was a fixed formula in the French professional repertoire, and Ranhofer treats it as such: three cross-references and a single line about the liver.