No. 1453

Tenderloin of Beef a la Milanese—Whole

Filet de Boeuf a la Milanaise--Entier

The tenderloin is to be prepared and cooked the same as for a l'Ambassade (No. 1441). When done remove it from the fire, wipe away all the fat and moisture adhering to it, brush it over with beaten eggs and cover with fresh bread crumbs and parmesan cheese; besprinkle with butter and brown it nicely in the oven. Arrange it on a foundation made of short paste (No. 135), garnishing around with small spaghetti macaroni blanched, then drained and cooked in some consommé (No. 189). Season with salt and mix in some parmesan cheese and a little brown sauce; add the macaroni, tongue, truffles and mushrooms, all cut Julienne shape. Serve separately an espagnole sauce (No. 414) reduced with some good gravy.

← No. 1452 Tenderloin of Beef a la Melinet—Whole Beef No. 1454 Tenderloin of Beef a la Montebello—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stock, sauces and pastry already at hand, so this entry is really an assembly instruction hung on half a dozen cross-references. The whole thing hinges on undercooking the tenderloin at the first stage, because it goes back into a hot oven to brown its crust.

Cook it rare the first timeThe tenderloin is prepared and cooked as for a l'Ambassade (No. 1441), which this page does not reproduce. Since the crusted fillet returns to a hot oven to colour, pull it well short — around 115-120F internally — or it will be grey by the time the parmesan crumbs brown.
Browning temperatureFor the crumb and cheese coat, a hot oven, 450F, for a short time. The aim is colour on the surface, not further cooking; watch it rather than time it.
Whole tenderloin, and what it feedsA trimmed beef tenderloin runs roughly 4-5 lb and will serve about ten to twelve as a course. Ranhofer gives no yield for this entry.
The short-paste foundationNo. 135 is the book's short paste; here it serves as a foundation, a base for presentation rather than the point of the dish. A plank, a long platter or a thin baked pastry rectangle all serve the same purpose.
"Small spaghetti macaroni"In this book macaroni is the general word for tubular and rod pasta alike; small spaghetti means a thin dried spaghetti. Blanch it very briefly, then finish it in consommé so it drinks up the stock — it will need noticeably less time in the consommé than the box directions suggest.
Espagnole and brown sauceNo. 414 is the long-simmered brown sauce of the period, reduced here with roasting juices. A good reduced veal or beef stock, thickened lightly, stands in; a thin gravy will not cling to the garnish.
The julienne garnishTongue means cooked, cured beef tongue, cut in matchsticks with the truffles and mushrooms. Cured tongue is a specialty-butcher item now; a firm cooked ham or bresaola gives a similar salty red thread through the pasta.
TrufflesThe recipe calls for truffles cut julienne, with no variety or quantity specified. A very small amount of fresh truffle shaved at the table, or good preserved truffle in the sauce, is the honest modern equivalent; truffle oil behaves nothing like it in a hot dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print — which is why entries like this one read as a chain of numbers pointing elsewhere in the book. "A la Milanaise" in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage generally signalled two things: an egg-and-crumb coating enriched with parmesan, and a garnish of pasta bound with cheese, tongue, mushrooms and truffle cut in fine strips. The label was applied across a whole family of dishes, from veal cutlets to whole tenderloins, and stood for an idea of Italy filtered through Paris rather than any single dish from Milan. Ranhofer offers this as one of a long run of whole-tenderloin preparations — Melinet before it, Montebello after — each differing only in crust and garnish, the sort of variation that let a large house serve the same expensive cut nightly without repeating itself.