No. 1459

Tenderloin of Beef a la Solohub—Whole

Filet de Boeuf a la Solohub--Entier

Prepare a tenderloin of beef in the following manner: After it has been well pared stud with truffles the third part of it (the center), and the narrow and third, lard with pork lardons (Fig. 52, No. 2), leaving the other end unlarded. Cover the studded part with a band of fat pork, line a long, narrow braziere with slices of fat pork, carrots, onions, and a garnished bunch of parsley; place the fillet on this; braise the meat with a very little moisture, only adding stock when it becomes too reduced; when almost done take out the meat and place it on a baking sheet; egg and bread-crumb the unlarded end, bestrew with grated cheese, pour melted butter over and brown in a hot oven. Dress on a rice foundation into which has been mixed some quarter inch squares of foies-gras. Garnish the sides of the tenderloin with minced cepes a la Bordelaise (No. 1574) and the ends with small patties filled with tomato puree (No. 730), strained through a very fine sieve and to which has been added some meat glaze (No. 402), thickening at the last moment with cream and egg-yolks. Serve a Russian sauce (No. 535) separately.

← No. 1458 Tenderloin of Beef a la Royal—Whole Beef No. 1460 Tenderloin of Beef a la Travers—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a larding needle, a truffle peeler and a stock pot always on. The dish is three preparations at once — a braised, larded, truffled tenderloin; a rice base; and two garnishes — and most of the work can be staged ahead.

The hinge: it is a braise in name onlyA whole pared tenderloin is lean and unforgiving; "braise with very little moisture" means a covered pot with barely enough liquid to make steam, not a submerged simmer. Pull it at 120-125F internal, since it still has to go under high heat for the crumbed end and will carry over several degrees.
"Hot oven"For the browning stage, a hot oven, around 450F, or the broiler for two or three minutes. The goal is colour on the crumbs and cheese; the recipe has you take the meat out when "almost done", so this stage finishes it.
Studding and lardingStudding means driving batons of truffle into holes made with a larding needle or the point of a boning knife; larding threads strips of firm back fat through the surface. Neither is necessary with modern well-marbled beef, but both were how a 19th-century kitchen kept tenderloin from drying. If you skip the fat lardons, keep the fat-pork bard tied over the whole roast.
BraziereA brazière is a long lidded braising pan. A covered roasting pan or an oval Dutch oven that just fits the fillet does the same job; too large a vessel and the small amount of liquid scorches.
Cèpes à la BordelaiseCèpes are porcini — fresh if you can get them, otherwise dried and rehydrated, or cremini with a little dried porcini powder. Bordelaise here means sautéed in oil with shallot, garlic and parsley, not the red-wine sauce of the same name.
Foies-gras and the rice foundationThe "foundation" is a socle: firm cooked rice pressed into a shallow mould, chilled, and turned out as a platter for the meat. Cut the foie gras cold into quarter-inch dice and fold it in at the last moment so it does not melt away.
The end pattiesThese are small baked bouchées or tartlet shells. Puff pastry shells from the freezer are a fair substitute. The tomato filling is finished off the heat with cream and yolks — hold it below a simmer or the yolks will scramble.
Russian sauceCheck Ranhofer's No. 535 before you commit, and make sure what you find there suits a hot braised fillet. A well-reduced Madeira or truffle sauce is the safer partner if you are not following the book to the letter.
YieldA whole trimmed tenderloin of 4-5 lb serves eight to ten as a main course, which is roughly the scale of dinner Ranhofer had in mind.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry is characteristic of its ambitions: a single tenderloin treated three different ways along its length — truffled in the middle, larded at the thin end, crumbed and gratinéed at the other — so that one joint carves into several distinct mouthfuls. The name is often said to honour a member of the Russian Sollogub family, whose best-known figure, Count Vladimir Sollogub, was a writer and courtier; Ranhofer named dozens of dishes for patrons, visiting dignitaries and public figures, and the accompanying "Russian sauce" points the same way. Whether the count ever ate it is another matter. The habit of borrowing Russian titles was itself fashionable in the period, when service à la russe — courses brought in sequence rather than all at once — had been displacing the older French style in grand American and European dining rooms since the middle of the century, and anything Russian carried a certain prestige at table.