No. 2431

Ribs of Beef a la Bourgeoise

Cotes de Boeuf a la Bourgeoise

Select a three-rib piece from the thinnest end of the ribs; remove two of the bones,leaving the middle one only. Lard the lean part of the meat with lardons (No. 1, Fig. 52) of raw, salted and unsmoked ham, season with mignonette and allspice, wrap it up in bards of bacon and tie. Garnish the bottom of a buttered braiziere (Fig. 134), with sliced onions and a carrot, a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123), and moisten with one gill of Madeira wine, one gill of brandy, and a sufficient quantity of stock (No. 194a) to immerse the meat to three-quarters of its height. Boil, skim, and let cook for two and a half to three hours, turning the meat over and basting frequently; then remove it from the fire, and leave it in the stock to get about two-thirds cold, then take it out and lay it under a weight, and when completely cold pare it nicely into the shape of a cutlet; scrape the surface of the bone, and glaze the meat. Set it on a dish, and garnish around with pear-shaped carrots and turnips, previously blanched and cooked in white broth with a little sugar, and reduced to a glaze. Clarify the stock in the braiziere in order to make a jelly (as explained in No. 103), garnish the dish with this jelly chopped up, and cut triangular-shaped croutons: fasten into the meat three handsome hatelets of vegetables (No. 2526); trim the bone with a large paper frill (No. 10).

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a braise that is deliberately finished cold, pressed and glazed for a buffet, so the cooking is only the first half of the job. Plan on two days.

The hinge: cool it in its own stock, then pressRanhofer has the meat cool to about two-thirds cold in the braising liquid before it is weighted, which helps the pressed slab hold its shape. Lift it out while still slightly warm, lay it between two trays with a few pounds of weight on top, and refrigerate overnight.
GillHalf a cup. The recipe calls for half a cup Madeira and half a cup brandy, plus enough stock to come three-quarters up the meat.
BraiziereA heavy lidded braising pan. Any Dutch oven or roasting pan with a tight cover that fits the meat snugly will do; a wide vessel means more liquid to reduce later.
Heat levelNo temperature is given because this was stovetop work over a slow fire. Keep it at a bare simmer, or set the covered pan in a 300F oven, for the stated two and a half to three hours. A boiling braise will shred the meat and cloud the stock you need for jelly.
MignonetteCoarsely cracked white or mixed peppercorns, not a sauce. Grind it fresh and keep it coarse.
Bards and lardonsBards are thin sheets of pork back fat wrapped around the meat and tied; the lardons here are strips of unsmoked salt-cured ham inserted with a larding needle. Substitute sliced fresh fatback or unsmoked pancetta for the bards and prosciutto-style unsmoked ham for the lardons. Smoked bacon will dominate everything.
Whether the stock will setThe jelly depends on gelatin drawn from the bones and connective tissue. Modern stock, and especially anything from a carton, often will not set firm enough to chop. Test a spoonful on a cold plate and bloom in powdered or sheet gelatin if it stays loose before clarifying.
Turned vegetables and hatelets"Pear-shaped" carrots and turnips are simply vegetables trimmed to a uniform tapered shape, blanched then glazed in broth with sugar until the liquid coats them. Hatelets are ornamental skewers and the paper frill dresses the single remaining bone; both are optional, and the dish reads perfectly well without them.
YieldA three-rib end cut, boned down to one bone and pared to a cutlet shape, gives roughly six to eight cold portions. Slice thin, across the grain, and serve the chopped jelly and croutons on the same platter.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the Cold Service chapters are essentially a catalogue of buffet architecture: meats braised, pressed, pared into geometry, glazed, and stood up among chopped aspic and skewers. The name is a small joke on itself. A la bourgeoise in French cookery signals plain home cooking, the garnish of onion, carrot and bacon that a household cook would braise a cheap cut with; here that homely method is applied to a rib end, then finished with turned vegetables, croutons, hatelets and a paper frill until nothing bourgeois remains. The larding needle and the bards of fat may also tell you something about the beef of the period, which is often said to have come from older, leaner working animals than the marbled rib we buy now and to have needed fat introduced by hand — though grain-fattened Western beef was already standard in New York fine dining by the 1890s. Cold pressed meats like this one earned their place on menus for practical reasons as well as decorative ones: they were made a day ahead, held safely on ice, and carved to order in front of the room.