No. 1440

Tournedos of Tenderloin of Beef with String Beans

Tournedos de Filet de Boeuf aux Haricots Verts

These are to be prepared the same as for tournedos a la Laguipierre (No. 1434); cook them very rare, glaze them with meat glaze, and dress. Surround with a garnishing of string beans a la Pettit (No. 2827), around the bean garnishing, place sippets of bread, one and a quarter inches by three-sixteenths inches, fried in butter; dress them one overlapping the other.

← No. 1439 Tournedos of Tenderloin of Beef with Raisins Beef No. 1441 Tenderloin of Beef a l'Ambassade—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade that already has stock, glaze and garnishes standing by, so the instruction is mostly assembly. The cross-references carry the actual cooking.

What a tournedos isA round steak cut from the heart of the tenderloin, generally an inch or so thick and portioned for one. Traditionally tied with string or barded with a thin sheet of fat so it holds its shape in the pan.
The method behind No. 1434The cooking is carried by the cross-reference to tournedos à la Laguipierre, which is not reproduced here. Tournedos of this kind are usually sautéed quickly in clarified butter over high heat.
"Very rare"A cool, deep red centre; in modern terms the low end of rare. Ranhofer had no thermometer, so the judgement was by touch. If you prefer more, understand that the dish is built on the contrast between the barely-cooked beef and the glossy glaze.
Meat glazeGlace de viande: brown stock reduced until it is syrupy and sets firm when cold. A spoonful melted and brushed over the hot steaks gives the lacquered shine the recipe wants. Commercial demi-glace concentrate is the practical substitute; do not use a flour-thickened gravy.
String beans à la PettitThe garnish is carried by the cross-reference to No. 2827, which is not printed on this page; the general form is haricots verts blanched in salted water and finished in butter. Cook them briefly and finish them at the last minute so they stay bright.
SippetsCroutons, cut here to a very precise 1¼ inches by 3/16 inch — essentially small fingers of bread fried golden in butter. They are a border, not an accompaniment, and are laid overlapping like roof tiles around the beans.
Assembly and timingEverything must be hot at once and the plating is quick, so fry the sippets first and hold them, have the beans finished, and glaze the steaks last.
YieldOne tournedos per person as a course within a longer menu; two if it is the centre of the meal.

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 reads like a catalogue of variations on a single luxury cut: tournedos with raisins, with truffles, with Madeira, with string beans. The tournedos itself is a nineteenth-century Parisian invention, the name generally traced to the practice of passing these small steaks around the back of the dining room rather than down the length of the table, though the etymology is traditional rather than documented. What makes this particular entry a period piece is the garnish: fresh green beans in a New York restaurant were a statement of supply and season, and the ring of butter-fried bread fingers, cut to three-sixteenths of an inch, shows the kind of geometric plating that Escoffier's generation would later strip away. Ranhofer's numbered cross-references are the book's real structure — he assumes a kitchen where No. 1434 and No. 2827 are already in production, which is why a dish of this ambition fits in four lines.