No. 1816

Pork Tenderloins, Pimentade Sauce

Filets de Porc Sauce Pimentade

Pare the tenderloins and lard them with medium lardons (No. 3, Fig. 52). Fry some mirepoix (No. 419) in butter, moisten it with Madeira wine and let get cold; cover the tenderloins with this and wrap them up in several sheets of buttered paper, then roast in a hot oven for twenty minutes; unwrap, glaze, and let attain a good color. Prepare a pimentade sauce (No. 521) reduced with the mirepoix; pour some of this sauce under the tenderloins and serve some separately.

← No. 1815 Tenderloin of Pork, Marinated Pork No. 1817 Tenderloins of Pork, Roasted, Broiled or Sau →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's kitchen recipe written as shorthand for cooks who already had the numbered base preparations at hand. Two things carry it: the paper wrapping, which steams the tenderloin in Madeira-soaked mirepoix, and the final unwrapped blast that colors the glaze.

The hinge: don't overshoot the roastTwenty minutes in a hot oven suits a whole trimmed tenderloin wrapped in paper; the book gives no temperature, so read "hot" as the high end of a modern oven. Modern pork is leaner than 1894 pork and dries fast. Pull it at 145F internal and rest three minutes; the unwrapping and glazing will add a little more heat.
Buttered paperParchment, buttered on the inside, tied or folded closed. "Several sheets" is not fussiness -- the layers keep the Madeira mirepoix from scorching and hold the steam. Kitchen twine is the easiest way to secure it.
LardingMedium lardons means strips of firm pork back fat or fatback, threaded through the meat with a larding needle; the book's No. 3 and Fig. 52 define the sizes. It is optional insurance against dryness; a thin barding of fatback tied over the top does much the same work if you have no needle.
Mirepoix, Ranhofer's versionHis No. 419 is richer than the plain modern trio: typically carrot, onion and celery cut small and cooked in butter with lean raw ham or salt pork and herbs. Fry it, moisten with Madeira, and let it get cold before it touches the meat, as the recipe directs.
GlazeTo "glaze" here means to brush with meat glaze -- veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup -- then return the unwrapped tenderloin to the oven or under a broiler until it takes on gloss and color. Reduced stock, not a sugar glaze.
Pimentade sauceNo. 521 in the same book. The name is usually connected with piment/pimento, the sweet pepper, rather than chili heat, though the recipe does not say so. In practice a brown sauce or espagnole finished with cooked, sieved red peppers and a little vinegar or wine will read correctly. Here it is further reduced with the mirepoix, so strain before serving.
YieldOne tenderloin serves two generously. Figure two or three for a table of four to six, and count on about a cup of sauce, half poured under the meat and half passed.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is written the way a professional kitchen actually worked: every dish is a set of cross-references to numbered stocks, sauces and garnishes kept going on the range. This tenderloin is a small example of the house style -- French technique applied to an American cut, larded and cooked in paper. The pepper garnish is generally traced to Spanish and Basque cooking rather than anything Parisian.