No. 2441

Tenderloin of Beef with Vegetables, Mayonnaise

Filet de Boeuf aux Legumes, Mayonnaise

Prepare and cook a tenderloin the same as for a la Chanzy (No. 1447), keeping it quite rare; glaze it over several times and leave till cold. The drawing that accompanies this dish will show the way to prepare the meat for a supper, or for serving at a small sideboard supper. First take an oval-shaped drum, three inches high and hollow in the center, fasten it on an oval board a quarter of an inch thick and an inch wider than the outlines of the drum; on top of this drum lay an oval wooden socle an inch and a half high and slightly curved in the center, it being two inches narrower all around than the drum itself, thus forming a shelf. Decorate all around the drum with small sticks of vegetables, such as carrots and turnips, cut out with a tin tube five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and blanched separately in salted water; lay them in regular rows one over the other formed of the two distinct colors, being careful to dip each piece in half-set jelly to make it adhere to the form; when the drum is all decorated, glide it on to a long dish, the bottom being filled with jelly; keep it in a cool place at forty-two degrees temperature. Pare and cut up the tenderloin in crosswise slices, each a quarter of an inch thick, dress them on the second curved-shape form, glaze and cover over with jelly. Have a garnishing of Brussels sprouts, celery roots, and cucumbers, all of uniform size, also some green peas, all of these to be dressed in small clusters, alternating the various colors; these must be placed on the shelf between the drum and the curve; put chopped jelly in the dish around the piece. Serve mayonnaise sauce (No. 606) at the same time.

← No. 2440 Tenderloin of Beef with Croustades Macedoine The Cold Service No. 2442 Borders of Different Shaped Jelly Croutons →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is an assembly and presentation piece rather than a cooking recipe: the actual work is a rare roast tenderloin, a batch of aspic, and a great deal of patient arranging. Ranhofer assumes you have his other entries open beside you.

The cross-referencesNo. 1447 ("
"Glaze" means two different things"Glaze" and "jelly" are distinct -- glazing the hot tenderloin is brushing on reduced meat glaze (glace de viande) for shine and colour, and the dressed slices are glazed again and then covered with aspic jelly, brushed on when syrupy and half-set. Do not use commercial gelatin dessert; a clarified, well-seasoned beef aspic is the point.
Drum and socleThe "drum" is a hollow oval stand and the "socle" a shallow curved platform sitting on it, leaving a visible ledge for the vegetable clusters. Nineteenth-century kitchens built these from wood, rice paste or hardened fat. A modern equivalent is a food-safe oval form or two stacked cake boards masked with vegetables, or simply a tiered platter.
Cutting the vegetablesThe "tin tube five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter" is a plain round cutter, about 8 mm, used to core batons from carrot and turnip. Blanch the two colours in separate pots of salted water or the turnip will pick up carrot tint, and refresh in ice water so they stay firm.
Forty-two degreesThat is Fahrenheit, about 6C, the temperature of a well-run cold larder. The whole piece must be held there while it is built; aspic softens quickly and a warm kitchen will collapse the vegetable facing off the drum.
SlicingQuarter-inch slices, cut only after the beef is fully cold and the meat glaze has set. Slicing warm tenderloin gives ragged, greying edges that no amount of jelly will hide.
Timing and yieldThe recipe gives neither. A whole trimmed tenderloin of 4-5 lb would slice out to serve roughly 12-16 at a buffet, and the meat must be roasted far enough ahead to be thoroughly cold before slicing.
Serving safelyCold rare beef, aspic and hand-made mayonnaise all want to stay under 40F. If it is standing on a sideboard, set the platter over ice and pull it after two hours.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the cooking of Delmonico's in New York, where he was chef for over thirty years, and its Cold Service chapter is essentially a manual for the garde-manger of a grand nineteenth-century restaurant. Set pieces like this one belong to the era of buffet suppers giving way to service, which was still expected to display architecture: hollow drums and socles, mirrored aspic, vegetables cut with tubes and columned in alternating colours. The base preparation is often said to take its name from Alfred Chanzy, the French general of the Franco-Prussian War, one of many dishes christened after public figures in the decades after 1870, though the text itself does not say so. The technique behind all of it is aspic as glue and glaze, the same clarified gelatinous stock that let a kitchen keep cold meat looking fresh through a long evening; the specified forty-two degrees is a reminder of how narrow that margin was.