No. 1457

Tenderloin of Beef a la Rothschild—While

Filet de Boeuf a la Rothschild--Entier

Pare a tenderloin and cook it the same as for a la Bienvenue (No. 1445); after it is done drain off the gravy, free it from fat, and reduce it to a half-glaze. Fry in butter some half heart-shaped slices of Westphalia ham, drain off the butter, remove the ham, and add half as much half-glaze (No. 400) as espagnole (No. 414), then reduce it to a proper consistency, and when ready to serve work in a small piece of butter; serve part of this sauce separately. Dress the tenderloin on a rice foundation (No. 10), garnish with some breasts of quail sauted in butter, the ham, also fried scallops of foies-gras; cover this garnishing with the reserved sauce espagnole and half-glaze; lay on top the tenderloin, eight Villeroi quenelles and between each quenelle a double and curled cock's-comb.

← No. 1456 Tenderloin of Beef a la Richelieu, Modern—Wh Beef No. 1458 Tenderloin of Beef a la Royal—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is an assembly recipe from the top of the Delmonico's repertoire: the beef itself is barely described because Ranhofer expects you to have his other numbers open beside it. Everything hangs on the sauce, which is a reduced espagnole enriched with the beef's own degreased roasting gravy.

The cross-referencesNo. 1445 (a la Bienvenue) is the cooking method, No. 400 the half-glaze, No. 414 the espagnole and No. 10 the rice foundation. Without them the page is a garnish list; treat it as one course in a book meant to be read whole.
Cooking the tenderloinThe method is not given here; it is deferred to No. 1445, which has to be consulted. If the beef is roasted, a whole trimmed tenderloin of 4-5 lb takes roughly 25-35 minutes in a hot oven to an internal 125-130F at the thick end, then rests 15 minutes. Ranhofer states neither time nor temperature; a probe thermometer is the reliable modern substitute.
Half-glaze and espagnoleEspagnole is brown sauce built on a brown roux and veal stock; half-glaze (demi-glace) is that sauce reduced with more stock until it coats. "Half as much half-glaze as espagnole" means one part demi-glace to two parts espagnole. A good reduced veal stock stands in for both if you are not making the classical sauces.
Westphalia hamA dry-cured, beech-smoked German ham, eaten raw in thin slices. Prosciutto or speck cut a little thicker than usual is the closest thing on a modern counter; it wants only a few seconds a side in butter or it turns to leather.
Cocks' combsBlanched, peeled and simmered combs were a standard 19th-century garnish and are essentially unobtainable now. Omit them rather than substituting; nothing else has that shape or gelatinous bite.
Villeroi quenellesForcemeat dumplings poached, coated in cold sauce Villeroi (an allemande stiffened with reduction), then breaded and fried. They must be thoroughly chilled after coating or the crumb crust splits in the fat.
The rice foundationNo. 10 is a socle -- a moulded, cemented rice plinth used as a platform for display, not something diners ate. A shallow bed of pilaf or a warmed platter serves the same purpose for a meal you intend to eat.
Foie gras and quailScallops of foie gras need under a minute a side in a dry hot pan and should be cooked at the last moment; quail breasts take two to three minutes total. Both are ruined by holding, so sauce and garnish should be finished before either goes in the pan.
YieldA whole tenderloin dressed this way would serve roughly eight to ten as part of a long menu, though the eight quenelles are a plating count and need not correspond to the number of guests. Serve part of the sauce separately, as directed.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of what that kitchen did; the book runs to some 3,500 numbered recipes cross-referenced against each other, which is why this one reads like an instruction to a cook rather than to a reader. Dishes named "a la Rothschild" belong to a large family of 19th-century French preparations associated with the banking family, and the name generally signals expense, here delivered through foie gras and quail rather than any single defining ingredient. The plating -- a rice socle, a garnish ring under the meat, quenelles and cocks' combs arranged on top -- is display cooking of the 1880s and 1890s, when an elaborate dish might be carried whole to the dining room to be seen before it was carved.