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Beef Braise, Monaco
Procure a three-pound piece of rump of beef. Cut sufficient very thin slices of larding pork to lard the beef all around. Chop very finely together one bean sound garlic, two branches parsley, two branches chervil and four branches chives. Carefully sprinkle these fine herbs on the surface of the slices of lard, on one side only. Arrange the lard neatly over the beef, the herb side downward; tie well with string all around; place the beef in a saucepan, add one sliced carrot, one sliced onion, two sliced leeks, two cloves, one bay leaf, a saltspoon thyme and two tablespoons melted lard. Set the pan on a brisk fire to brown for ten minutes, turning once in a while. Add two tablespoons flour and lightly mix with a spoon. Moisten with a wine glass claret or white wine, one pint white broth or hot water and two gills hot demi-glace. Season with a tablespoon salt, a teaspoon white pepper and a branch tarragon. Cover the pan, let boil for ten minutes, then set the pan in the oven for one hour and a half. Remove, uncover, take up the beef and keep warm. Reduce the gravy to a half pint on the fire. Strain the sauce through a small sieve into another saucepan, add twelve stoned olives and two ounces cooked, lean ham cut into half-inch squares; boil the sauce for five minutes more. Dress the beef on a large, hot dish; untie, remove the fat all around, then pour the contents of the pan over the beef. Garnish with six stuffed tomatoes around the beef and serve.
A straightforward braise dressed up in Delmonico's-era French. The technique is sound; the measurements need translating, and one of them needs cutting.
- The saltA tablespoon of salt plus a pint of broth plus a cup of demi-glace, all reduced by half, will be inedible. Salt the beef itself, then season the finished sauce at the end once it has reduced and the olives and ham have gone in.
- Archaic measuresA gill is half a cup, so two gills of demi-glace is one cup. A wine glass is roughly 2 fl oz. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. "Reduce to a half pint" means one cup of finished sauce.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given at all. For an hour and a half of covered braising on a 3 lb roast, around 325F works; the liquid should barely tremble, not boil.
- Larding porkWhat is described is barding, not larding: thin sheets of fatback wrapped around the outside and tied, not strips threaded through the meat. Ask a butcher for fatback or caul fat; sliced pancetta or unsmoked streaky bacon will stand in, though bacon adds cure flavour the original did not have.
- "One bean sound garlic"One clove of sound, firm garlic; a single small clove is the right amount. Chervil is sold fresh only seasonally; if you cannot find it, use extra parsley and a little tarragon rather than dried chervil, which tastes of nothing.
- White brothAn unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Unsalted chicken stock is the practical modern substitute. Demi-glace is now sold in tubs and jars; a cup of a decent commercial one works, but taste it for salt before adding any of your own.
- The cutRump here means a boneless piece from the round or rump end. Chuck or brisket braises more forgivingly. Whatever you use, tie it into an even cylinder so the ninety minutes cooks it evenly.
- DonenessNinety minutes at 325F will give a sliceable, faintly firm roast rather than a falling-apart braise, which is what the period wanted. If you prefer it fork-tender, plan on two and a half to three hours and add liquid as needed.
- Yield and garnishThree pounds of beef serves six. The stuffed tomatoes are assumed to be made separately from another entry in the book; halved tomatoes filled with breadcrumbs, garlic and herbs and baked while the beef rests will do the same job.
Alexander Filippini spent decades in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906) is essentially his working repertoire, arranged alphabetically: hundreds of short, dense entries in English studded with the French kitchen terms of the period, many of them carrying place names. "Monaco" here reads as a garnish label rather than a claim of origin -- olives, ham and tomatoes suggest the Mediterranean littoral, the same logic that seems to lie behind à la niçoise and à la provençale. The underlying dish is a plain bœuf braisé: barded, browned, floured, moistened with wine and stock reinforced by demi-glace, and finished with a reduction. That reliance on a house demi-glace is the giveaway that this was written by a restaurant chef for readers he assumed had a stockpot going, which is why the sauce comes together in five minutes at the end while a home cook today has to buy or build it in advance.