No. 664

Dolphettes of Tenderloins of Beef Garnishing

Garniture de Dolphettes de Filet de Boeuf

Fry colorless, in two ounces of butter, one ounce and a half of chopped shallot; add to it a pound and a half of cooked and finely hashed tenderloin of beef, three ounces of fresh bread-crumbs, three ounces of grated parmesan, and eight egg-yolks or two to three whole eggs. Let this preparation cool off, then divide it into eight parts, forming each one into a ball; roll these in fresh bread-crumbs and grated parmesan, mixed well together and fry them to a fine color.

← No. 663 Dolphettes of Chicken Garnishing Garnishings No. 665 Duchess Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish, not a course: eight fried croquettes of cooked beef meant to ring a roast or fill a platter. Everything hinges on the mixture being cold and firm before it is shaped.

Chill before shapingWarm mixture will slump and burst in the fat. Spread it on a tray, refrigerate at least an hour until it holds a clean ball, and chill the coated balls again for 20 minutes before frying.
"Fry colorless"Ranhofer's phrase for sweating: cook the shallot in butter over low heat until soft and translucent with no browning at all. Colour here would flatten the delicate tenderloin flavour.
The egg questionEight yolks and "two to three whole eggs" are not equivalent binders. Yolks give a richer, denser dolphette; whole eggs a lighter, looser one that needs the longer chill. Start with the smaller quantity and add more only if the mass will not hold together.
The beefThis is a leftover dish. Roast or braised tenderloin, chopped fine by hand rather than ground, keeps some texture; a food processor will turn a pound and a half into paste in seconds.
SeasoningThe original specifies none. The parmesan brings salt, so taste the raw mixture cautiously and add pepper and a scrape of nutmeg.
FryingDeep fat at 350-375F, two to three minutes to a deep gold. The interior is already cooked, so you are only setting the crust and heating through; longer and the eggs tighten and the balls go dry.
CoatingFresh crumbs and grated parmesan mixed together, as directed (the recipe gives no proportion for the coating itself), browns faster than plain crumbs because the cheese scorches. Keep the fat at the low end of the range and drain on a rack, not paper, so the crust stays crisp.
YieldEight balls, each nearer four ounces once the crumbs, cheese, butter, shallot and eggs are counted in with the pound and a half of beef. Scaled down smaller they would serve as an hors d'oeuvre.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium written after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits in the numbered section of garnishes that a cook would cross-reference from a main entry elsewhere in the book. "Dolphette" is often said to be an Anglicisation of the Italian polpetta, a small meatball, though the derivation is a plausible guess rather than a documented one; its appearance in a French-titled recipe in an American book is a fair picture of how Ranhofer worked: French grammar, Italian and English vocabulary, and the produce of a New York kitchen.