Tenderloin of Beef a la Travers—Whole

This is an assembly recipe rather than a self-contained one: Ranhofer expects you to cook the tenderloin by his No. 1443 and to have four other preparations on hand. Read it as a plating scheme for a whole roast fillet, and decide first how much of the garnish you actually want to build.

• The hinge is the beef, not the garnishEverything here decorates a whole trimmed tenderloin, so the meat governs the timing. Ranhofer specifies no weight, oven heat or doneness in this entry; the cooking is all deferred to No. 1443. As a modern working guide, a 4-5 lb center-cut fillet takes a hot oven, around 425-450F, and can be pulled at 120-125F internal for rare, then rested 15 minutes; it will carry over several degrees. All garnishes should be finished and held warm before the beef goes in.
• "Glaze it"Meat glaze in this book is glace de viande — brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Brush it on the pared roast in a thin coat for gloss. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a heavily reduced beef stock does the same job.
• Rice foundationA socle: cooked rice pressed into a mould or shaped into a low plinth to raise the roast on the platter. Such bases in service of this kind were often decorative as much as anything, though rice is perfectly edible. A firm bed of pilaf, moulded in a loaf pan and turned out, serves the same purpose.
• Artichoke bottomsTrimmed cooked artichoke hearts with the leaves and choke removed, not the marinated quartered kind. Whole canned or frozen bottoms, drained and dried well, take the egg-and-crumb coating; fresh globe artichokes trimmed down to the base work best but cost far more labor.
• Timbale paste and the little timbalesNo. 150 (not reproduced here) is a stiff pastry moulded into small cups and baked, essentially an edible container. Small tart shells or barquettes are a fair substitute. Fill only at the last moment, or the creamed spinach softens the shells.
• Marinade sauce, well butteredRanhofer's No. 496 is not reproduced here; marinades of the period were generally vinegar- and wine-based, so the sauce would read as a piquant brown sauce in the poivrade family. "Well buttered" means finished off the heat with cold butter whisked in; do not let it boil afterward or it will separate.
• Sweetbread croquette fillingVeal sweetbreads need ordering ahead from a butcher. They must be soaked, blanched, peeled of membrane and pressed before being bound into a thick croquette mixture, and the mixture has to be fully chilled or the artichoke cases will leak in the fryer.
• Yield and serviceA whole tenderloin dressed this way would serve roughly eight to ten as a platter, presumably carved at the table or on the sideboard. The gravy goes under the roast, in the dish; the marinade sauce goes to table separately in a boat, as written.