No. 1455

Tenderloin of Beef, Neapolitan Style—Whole

Filet de Boeuf a la Napolitaine--Entier

Have a fine tenderloin cooked and prepared as described in a la Bienvenue (No. 1445); only lard it with pork and ham, cut the size shown in No. 2, Fig. 52; when done, pare, glaze, and lay it on a trimmed rice foundation, garnishing around with macaroni croquettes. Strain the braise, skim off the fat, and reduce it with some broken game bones and half a pint of Malaga wine; strain again, keep back one-third without adding anything to it to put with the meat, and divide; to one add some citron cut in fine Julienne shape, and to the other some sultana raisins; serve the remainder into two equal parts; the citron sauce in one sauce-boat, and the raisin sauce in another, or the two may be mingled together.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a composed service piece from a chef's reference book, written for a cook who already has No. 1445 open beside him: a whole tenderloin, larded, braised, glazed and set on a rice plinth. The points below fill in what Ranhofer assumed you knew.

Read the cross-reference firstNearly all the technique lives in No. 1445 (à la Bienvenue), where the tenderloin is prepared and braised; this entry only changes the larding material and the sauce, so the base recipe is not optional.
Larding, and what it is forStrips of pork fatback and ham are drawn through the meat with a larding needle. Tenderloin has almost no internal fat, and a long braise without larding gives dry, grainy meat. Chilled fat and a sharp needle are what make this workable; the ham is there for flavour and colour, not moisture.
Braising a tenderloin is a period choiceModern kitchens roast tenderloin fast and pull it at 125-130F for rare. A braise à la Bienvenue takes it well past that by design — this is a nineteenth-century banquet presentation where the cut is prized for its evenness and its slice, not for pink meat. If you want it rare, you are cooking a different dish.
Malaga wineA sweet fortified wine from Málaga, then common in American pantries and now scarce. Cream sherry, a sweet Madeira (Bual or Malmsey), or Marsala superiore dolce all sit in the same register. Half a pint is one cup.
Game bones in the sauceBroken bones from hare, venison or game birds are simmered in the strained braising liquid to give it depth and a faint gaminess. Roasted poultry or veal bones will do the same job less assertively; strain through a fine chinois before dividing the sauce.
Citron and sultanasCitron here means candied citron peel, cut in fine julienne, not the fresh fruit and not lemon. With the sultanas and the sweet wine, the two sauces are frankly sweet-savoury; add both late so the raisins plump without collapsing.
GlazeTo glaze is to brush the pared tenderloin with glace de viande — stock reduced to a syrup — for gloss. A few spoonfuls of the braise reduced hard in a small pan gives the same effect.
The rice foundationA socle: firmly cooked rice pressed into a mould, chilled, unmoulded and trimmed flat to raise the meat on the platter. It is architecture rather than eating. A tidy bed of pilaf serves the same purpose without the carving.
YieldA whole trimmed tenderloin runs 4-6 lb and slices for 8-12 at table, with the macaroni croquettes and two sauce-boats doing the rest of the work.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it reads as what it was: a working reference for a large brigade serving long formal menus, with dozens of numbered tenderloin variations cross-linked to one another. "À la Napolitaine" in the classical repertoire generally signals macaroni, and the macaroni croquettes here are the Neapolitan tag as fixed in French garnish nomenclature since well before Ranhofer wrote. The raisins, candied citron and sweet Málaga wine belong to an older tradition of dried-fruit sauces for roast and braised meat that survived in grand-hotel cooking long after it left domestic tables, and the rice socle and paired sauce-boats show the dish being built for service from a sideboard.