No. 1454

Tenderloin of Beef a la Montebello—Whole

Filet de Boeuf a la Montebello--Entier

To be prepared and cooked the same as explained for a la Bayonnaise (No. 1443); after it is done, pared and glazed, dress it on a symmetrically trimmed rice foundation, and garnish it with a preparation made beforehand, composed of sixteen artichoke bottoms two inches in diameter. Fill with a salpicon made of sweetbreads, truffles, and mushrooms, to which has been added some well reduced allmande sauce (No. 407); have it slightly bomb-shaped and cover the whole with a cream forcemeat (No. 74); sprinkle over very finely chopped tongue, pour over some butter, and poach the whole in the oven for fifteen minutes or more; have some mushroom heads fried in butter, and seasoned, finished with some meat glaze (No. 402) and fine herbs. Dress the artichoke bottoms on each side of the tenderloin, the cooked mushrooms at the end; pour some well-seasoned thickened gravy (No. 405) over, and serve a Montebello sauce (No. 502) separate.

← No. 1453 Tenderloin of Beef a la Milanese—Whole Beef No. 1455 Tenderloin of Beef, Neapolitan Style—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cross-referenced showpiece from Ranhofer's system: the beef itself is cooked elsewhere (No. 1443), and what you see here is the garnish. Read it as an assembly plan and work backwards.

What you are actually cookingA whole trimmed beef tenderloin, cooked as at No. 1443, glazed, and set on a rice base with sixteen stuffed artichoke bottoms flanking it. The recipe gives no yield, but sixteen garnishes imply a large table; halving the garnish count is the sensible reduction.
The missing methodThe cooking is all at "a la Bayonnaise" (No. 1443), which this page does not reproduce. Without that page, treat it as a standard whole tenderloin roast at 425F to an internal 125-130F for medium rare, rested, then brushed with reduced stock until shiny.
SalpiconNot a sauce but a dice: everything cut to a uniform small dice. Sweetbreads must be soaked, blanched, pressed and peeled before dicing, which is a day's advance work in itself.
Sauce allemande and cream forcemeatAllemande is veloute finished with egg yolk and cream, reduced here until it will hold the dice in a dome. The cream forcemeat (No. 74) is a separate cross-referenced preparation, spread over the mound; it sets during poaching and is what holds the whole thing together.
Poaching in the oven"Poach the whole in the oven" here means gentle oven heat with the butter poured over, not fierce dry roasting. Fifteen minutes is about right for the forcemeat to firm; overshoot and it weeps butter and collapses.
Chopped tongueCured, cooked beef tongue, chopped to near powder, used purely as red confetti over the pale forcemeat. Any cured tongue or even lean prosciutto gives the same visual effect.
Artichoke bottomsFresh large globe artichokes trimmed to two-inch cups, cooked in acidulated blanc so they stay pale. Good-quality tinned or frozen bottoms are a legitimate substitute and save an hour of paring.
The three saucesThe sauces -- Thickened gravy (No. 405) is poured over, Montebello sauce (No. 502) served separate in a boat. Keeping the gravy off the forcemeat domes preserves the chopped tongue pattern.
Order of workArtichokes and salpicon a day ahead, forcemeat the morning of, mushroom heads and the beef last. The garnishes will hold warm; the tenderloin will not.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's internal reference book, which is why so many entries send you to three other numbered pages instead of standing alone. The name is traditionally said to honour Jean Lannes, Duc de Montebello, one of Napoleon's marshals, though nineteenth-century "Montebello" dishes are equally often referred to the battles of that name; either way, like Marengo or Bayonnaise, it functioned as shorthand among professionals for a fixed set of accompaniments rather than a story about the man. The construction here is pure grande cuisine logic: a plain roast is the pedestal, and the labour goes into sixteen identical individual garnishes that announce a brigade of cooks at work. Whole tenderloin dressed on a rice or bread socle appears to have been a familiar banquet display in the period, apparently meant to be carried in and shown before it was carved at a side table.