No. 2322

Tenderloin of Beef Pudding with Oysters

Pouding de Filet de Boeuf aux Huitres

Pour a pound of sifted flour on the table, make a hole in the center, so that the flour forms a crown, and in the hollow of the crown set three-quarters of a pound of beef kidney suet, after removing the skin and fibers, and chopping it up well; add half an ounce of salt, half a pint of water, more or less, according to the quantity the paste can absorb, and in order to obtain a firm paste without its crumbling; let it repose for one hour or more, then roll it out to three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness; butter the inside of a dome-shaped mold, line it nicely with the above paste, then cut some slices of tenderloin, about two ounces in weight each, trim them and season them with salt and pepper. Fry in butter without browning two ounces of chopped onions, add to it the slices of tenderloin, leaving them in just time enough to stiffen, then remove them and lay them in an earthen bowl; add to the butter one teaspoonful of flour and let cook for a few minutes; moisten with stock (No. 194a) and white wine, and with this make a little stiff sauce; pour it over the tenderloin, and when all is nearly cold fill the mold with layers of the tenderloin, the sauce and some raw oysters, drained and well dried, removing the hard parts of the oyster. When the mold is nearly full, wet the edges of the paste, and cover with an upper crust, pressing it down on to the lower crust; cover it over with a damp, buttered and floured cloth, fastening it on tight, then plunge it into hot water to boil for one hour and a half to two hours. Unmold and serve with an English brown sauce (No. 1571).

← No. 2321 Poulpetonniere of Pigeons Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2323 Lamb Pudding—Minion Fillets a la Gladstone →

For the Modern Kitchen

A steak-and-oyster pudding in the English manner, dressed up with tenderloin and set in a dome mold. The whole thing is boiled, not baked, and the crust is suet paste rather than pastry.

The hinge: keep the filling cold when you fillRanhofer says to fill the mold when the meat and sauce are "nearly cold," and this matters. Warm filling melts the suet in the lining before the pudding hits the water, and the crust slumps and leaks.
SuetBeef kidney suet, skinned and finely chopped, is still sold by butchers and in shredded packet form. Packet shredded suet is coated with a little flour, so hold back a spoonful or two of the pound of flour. Vegetable suet works but gives a softer, less flaky crust.
MeasuresHalf a pint of water is one US cup; expect to use slightly less or more. Half an ounce of salt is about 2½ teaspoons of table salt for a pound of flour, which is on the assertive side but suits a suet crust that will be boiled.
Rolling thicknessThree-sixteenths of an inch is a shade under 5 mm. Thinner and it will burst in the water; much thicker and the crust next to the filling stays pasty.
The mold and the clothA 1.5 to 2 quart basin is a reasonable stand-in for the dome mold, though Ranhofer gives no size. Tie the buttered and floured cloth tightly under the rim; pleating it across the top to give the crust room to rise is modern practice rather than anything Ranhofer specifies, as is a sheet of pleated parchment under foil tied with string. Ranhofer says to plunge the mold into hot water to boil, so keep the water at a bare boil and topped up.
OystersShucked oysters, drained and patted dry, with the tough adductor muscle trimmed off. Bought pre-shucked oysters in liquor are fine here; Ranhofer gives no number, so judge by the layers you are building. They go in raw and are meant to cook in the sealed filling, so do not pre-cook them.
Stock and sauce referencesNo. 194a is Ranhofer's stock reference, used throughout the book; a light veal or chicken stock stands in. No. 1571 is his English brown sauce, though its composition is not given here. A well-reduced beef gravy served alongside is closer to the intent than nothing.
Yield and timingRoughly six servings. Ninety minutes suits a smaller basin, the full two hours a larger one, as Ranhofer's range allows. Let it stand a few minutes before unmolding.

A Little History

Beefsteak and oyster pudding was a London chophouse standard through the nineteenth century, when oysters were cheap enough to be padding rather than luxury, and it traveled into the American repertoire with the English boiled-pudding tradition. What Ranhofer does here is characteristic of Delmonico's under his direction: he takes a plainly English dish, swaps the usual chuck or skirt for tenderloin cut into two-ounce slices, gives it a stiffened flour-thickened sauce of stock and white wine, and sets it in a dome mold so it can be turned out whole. The suet crust is the tell that the original is English rather than French, and the French title he gives it is largely courtesy. Its place among the "Miscellaneous Entrées" of The Epicurean (1894) reflects a kitchen that was expected to produce British, German and Italian dishes on request alongside the French canon.