No. 1463

Tenderloin of Beef, Indian Style—Whole

Filet de Boeuf a l'Indienne--Entier

Have a fine tenderloin prepared and cooked as for a la Bayonnaise (No. 1443), then glaze and dish it, garnishing the sides with rice timbales, and the ends with small rice croquettes the size and shape of Spanish olives. Serve in a separate sauce-boat a light poivrade sauce (No. 522) with curry.

Indian Rice.—How to prepare the rice for the timbales and croquettes: Pick one pound of rice, wash well, blanch and drain it; set it in a saucepan with half a pound of butter, and the decoction of a pinch of saffron infused in half a gill of water, salt and cayenne pepper. Cover the rice with beef stock (No. 194a), boil and let finish cooking in a slow oven for half an hour, then remove a quarter of it and put it into a bowl, mixing in with it sufficient allemande sauce (No. 407) to give it consistency, then let get cool, and afterward form it into croquettes the size and shape of a Spanish olive, fill some timbale molds with the balance of the rice.

← No. 1462 Tenderloin of Beef, Hunter's Style—Whole Beef No. 1464 Tenderloin of Beef a la Printaniere—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot already going, and this entry leans on four other recipes by number. Read it as an assembly plan: a glazed whole tenderloin, saffron rice in two forms, and a curried pepper sauce served apart.

The cross-referencesNothing here is self-contained. No. 1443 (à la Bayonnaise) is the actual cooking method for the beef, No. 522 is poivrade, No. 407 is allemande, and No. 194a is the beef stock. Have all four to hand before starting, or substitute: a larded, roasted whole tenderloin, a peppery reduction sauce, and a velouté thickened with egg yolks.
Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 2 fl oz — a quarter cup of water to infuse the saffron. Steep the pinch of threads and use the liquid, threads and all.
Slow ovenConventionally reckoned at around 300F. The rice has already come to a boil on the stovetop and finishes there for half an hour so the grains swell without agitation; the recipe does not say whether the pan is lidded.
The butter is not a misprintHalf a pound of butter to one pound of rice is what the recipe says, and it reads as extremely rich now. Halving it should still give rice that moulds and fries well; cutting it much further is likely to leave the grains too dry to bind.
Allemande sauceA velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison and sharpened with lemon. It is the binder for the croquettes and it must be thick — add it a spoonful at a time until the rice holds a shape when squeezed, then chill thoroughly before forming.
Timbales and croquettesTimbale moulds of the period were typically small straight-sided cups, buttered and packed with the plain saffron rice, then turned out. The croquettes are shaped to the size of a Spanish olive — about an inch long — and Ranhofer does not say to fry them; a light egg-and-crumb and a brief fry gives them the contrast the plate wants.
Curry powderCommercial curry powders of the period were generally mild and turmeric-forward. A modern Madras powder is hotter and more aromatic; add it to the poivrade by degrees and let it cook in the sauce rather than stirring it in raw at the end.
GlazingTo glaze means to brush the cooked fillet with reduced, syrupy stock (glace de viande) and flash it in a hot oven or under the salamander until it shines. It is a finish, not a cooking step, and should happen at the last minute.
YieldA whole trimmed tenderloin runs 4 to 5 lb and serves ten to twelve at this scale. The pound of rice gives a generous quantity: a quarter of it goes to the croquettes, the balance fills the timbale moulds.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is the record of that kitchen — some twelve hundred pages of numbered, cross-referenced dishes built to be assembled by a large staff. "À l'Indienne" in the French classical repertoire is a code rather than a claim of authenticity: it signals curry and rice, the two things nineteenth-century European kitchens had absorbed from the subcontinent by way of British colonial trade, and it appears attached to everything from soles to consommés. The saffron here is a French flourish rather than an Indian one; the rice is treated as a moulded garnish in the manner of any other timbale on the menu. The dish tells you what a fashionable American restaurant of the period meant by exotic — a familiar prime cut, cooked in an entirely French way, with the foreign element quarantined in a sauce-boat on the side.