No. 1813

Tenderloin of Pork a la Printaniere

Filet de Porc a la Printaniere

The tenderloin is the long, narrow plump piece of meat laying under the kidney along the spinal bone; it is a part of the loin; it weighs from half a pound to a pound. Have four fine whole pork tenderloins; pare, remove the sinews and lard them with medium lardons (No. 3, Fig. 52), line a sautoir with bardes of fat pork, sliced carrots and onions, and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf. Lay the larded tenderloins on top, moisten with a pint of stock (No.194a) and a gill of Madeira, cover with a round piece of buttered paper, reduce and let the liquid fall to a glaze; moisten once more until it reaches half the heighth of the meat, then cook for one hour or more in the slow oven; glaze and dress on a rice foundation an inch and a half high, garnish around with small carrots cut in the shape of cylinders or pears, balls of turnips, both blanched and cooked in broth, olive form potatoes, green peas and asparagus tops. Skim the fat from the surface of the stock, strain and reduce it with some espagnole sauce (No. 414), strain it once more through a tammy and cover the meat with a part of this, serving the remainder in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1812 Tenderloin of Pork a la Minute—Minced Pork No. 1814 Tenderloin of Pork, Blanquette or Escaloped, →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's braise built on a cut that has changed more than almost anything else in the meat case. Ranhofer's tenderloins came from fatter, slower-grown hogs; today's are lean, uniform and much less forgiving of a long oven.

The hinge: modern pork tenderloin will not take an hourA present-day tenderloin runs 1 to 1 1/4 lb and is essentially fat-free. Braised an hour it turns dry and stringy. Either cut the braise to 25-35 minutes, pulling at 145F internal, or substitute a boneless loin roast or shoulder if you want the full hour of oven time and the reduced glaze that comes with it.
Larding and bardesLarding means threading strips of firm back fat through the meat with a larding needle; bardes are thin sheets of the same fat used to line the pan. Both compensate for a lean cut. Sheets of fatback or unsmoked pork belly from a butcher work; thin-sliced pancetta is a reasonable stand-in for the lining, though it adds salt and cure flavour.
Gill and pintA gill is half a cup, so 4 fl oz of Madeira. Ranhofer's pint is the US pint, 2 cups of stock. Use a dry or medium-dry Madeira (Sercial or Verdelho), not the sweet cooking stuff.
SautoirA straight-sided saute pan, wide and shallow, deep enough to hold liquid. Any wide braising pan or shallow Dutch oven with a lid serves. The buttered paper is a cartouche, cut to the pan's diameter and laid directly on the meat.
Slow ovenRoughly 275-325F. The two-stage moistening is deliberate: the first liquid is reduced to a sticky glaze that coats the meat, then more stock goes in to halfway up the meat for the actual braise.
EspagnoleRanhofer's No. 414 is a classic brown sauce built on a brown roux and brown stock, cooked down at length. A good reduced veal or brown chicken stock, thickened lightly with beurre manie, gives the same body without the day's work. Straining through a tammy means passing through fine cloth; a fine chinois or a sieve lined with muslin is the equivalent.
The printaniere garnishThe name refers to the spring vegetables around the dish. The recipe turns carrots into cylinders or pear shapes and turnips into balls, both blanched and then cooked in broth; potatoes are turned to olive shapes. Peas and asparagus tips finish the garnish. Uniform small-diced vegetables are honest if you do not want to turn them by hand.
The rice foundationA moulded bed of plain cooked rice, packed about an inch and a half deep on the platter, that raises the meat and absorbs the sauce. Cook the rice firm, not creamy, or it will slump.
YieldFour tenderloins of the size Ranhofer describes amount to roughly two to four pounds of meat; with the full garnish that would stretch to eight or ten as part of a longer menu, or perhaps six to eight as a main course.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked in more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is written as a professional reference rather than a home cookbook, which is why it cross-references sauces, stocks and larding diagrams by number instead of spelling them out. A la printaniere means, straightforwardly, "in the spring style": a garnish of young turned vegetables, peas and asparagus tips arranged around a braised joint, a formula that runs through nineteenth-century French service and appears in Careme and Gouffe well before Ranhofer. The larding is the period detail that dates the dish most clearly. It was routine work when hogs were still fattened for lard as much as for meat and when a cook could count on a supply of firm back fat; the practice faded through the twentieth century as pork was bred leaner and the fat that made larding possible stopped arriving with the carcass.