No. 1465

Tenderloin of Beef with Truffles—Whole

Filet de Boeuf aux Truffes--Entier

To be prepared as for l'Ambassade (No. 1441); stud the tenderloin with raw truffles cut to represent nails, drive them in the surface of the meat one inch apart from each other, using a wooden peg for the purpose a little smaller than the nail. Cover the tenderloin with slices of fat pork, and tie them on; finish cooking exactly the same as tenderloin a la Bayonnaise (No. 1443), and when the meat is done, drain, trim and dress it on a long dish, garnish on each side with small peeled truffies, covering with clear half-glaze (No. 400). Serve separately a Madeira sauce with essence of truffles (No. 395).

← No. 1464 Tenderloin of Beef a la Printaniere—Whole Beef No. 1466 Tenderloin of Beef with Vegetables—Whole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand, leaning on three other numbered recipes for the actual cooking. What is given here is essentially a decorating and finishing method for a whole roast tenderloin.

The cross-references are the recipeNos. 1441 and 1443 carry the preparation and cooking, Nos. 395 and 400 the sauce and glaze. On their own these lines tell you only how to stud and garnish; assume a whole trimmed tenderloin, barded, and cooked as directed in those entries.
The hinge: drill, then insertThe wooden peg is the whole trick. Truffle "nails" cut to a taper will crumble if forced into raw meat, so you bore a slightly undersized hole first and press the truffle in behind it. Space them an inch apart over the surface as directed.
Fat pork and bardingSlices of fat back pork tied over the meat protect the studded surface and baste it. Modern fatback or unsmoked pork belly fat works; sliced bacon substitutes but brings smoke and salt the dish was not built around. The bard comes off before dressing.
Half-glaze and Madeira sauce"Clear half-glaze" is demi-glace, a brown sauce reduced with stock until it naps and shines. "Essence of truffles" is generally truffle trimmings and peelings steeped in Madeira and strained; see No. 395 for Ranhofer's own version.
DonenessThe book gives no temperature. A whole tenderloin is best pulled at 125-130F at the thick end for rare to medium rare and rested 15 minutes; the thin tail will always run further along. A 300F oven cooks it more evenly than a hot one.
Truffles, then and now"Raw truffles" means fresh black truffles. Preserved truffles in jars can be cut into nails if firm enough; the tinned "truffle peelings" sold today are too thin for studding but are what you want for the essence.
YieldA whole trimmed tenderloin runs 4-5 lb and would serve roughly 10-12 as a course of this size.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is his catalogue of that restaurant's repertoire, laid out as a numbered system in which each dish borrows the preparation of another. Studding meat with truffle in the shape of nails is the technique the French call clouté, from clou, a nail, and it belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of decorated centerpiece roasts displayed on a long dish before service. The near-identical run of numbered tenderloins around this one, each differing mainly in its garnish, shows how a grand restaurant of the period built a menu: one well-executed base preparation dressed a dozen ways.