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Broiled Beefsteaks, Maitre D'Hotel
Procure six small, tender beefsteaks of five ounces each. Pare them nicely and lightly flatten them evenly with a cleaver. Mix on a plate a tablespoon oil, a teaspoon salt and a half teaspoon white pepper. Gently roll the steaks in the seasoning, then arrange on a broiler and broil on a lively, clear coal fire for six minutes on each side. Dress them on a hot dish. Spread a maitre d'hotel butter, over the steaks, evenly divided and serve.
A straightforward grilled steak from the era of the coal range, with the only real technique hidden in the compound butter the title names but never explains.
- Maitre d'hotel butterThe recipe assumes you know it: softened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then chilled. Roughly 4 oz butter, 2 tablespoons parsley and the juice of half a lemon covers six steaks. Put it on cold, in slices, so it melts into a sauce on the hot meat.
- Cut and thicknessFive ounces each of "small, tender" steak points to a small cut such as a minute steak or tenderloin medallion rather than a 16 oz ribeye. The recipe says only to flatten them lightly and evenly, so no thickness is specified; something in the region of half an inch is a reasonable reading.
- Six minutes a side is too longAt that thickness, six minutes per side over a hot fire gives grey, dry meat. Two to three minutes a side is closer, or an internal 130-135F for medium-rare.
- "Lively, clear coal fire"Coal burned down to steady red heat with no smoke or flame. The equivalent is a well-preheated charcoal bed, or a broiler element run at full heat with the pan about three inches beneath it.
- Pare them nicelyTrim off silverskin, ragged edges and surface gristle. Leave a thin rim of fat if the cut has one.
- SeasoningA tablespoon of oil and a teaspoon of salt is enough for six small steaks; roll them in it rather than pouring it over. White pepper was often preferred in period cooking, and is usually explained by a dislike of black specks in a dressed dish, though that reasoning is more often asserted than evidenced.
- ServingSix steaks of five ounces serves six as written, though it is a modest portion by current standards. Warm the platter properly; compound butter on a cold dish sets rather than sauces.
History: Maitre d'hotel butter is one of the plainest of the French compound butters, its name being that of the head steward or manager of the house. By the nineteenth century some form of it was a common finish for grilled meat and fish in restaurant cooking, and a maitre d'hotel preparation appears in the French professional repertoire from Careme through Escoffier. The recipe's assumption that the reader will recognise the term without a cross-reference reflects how far French professional practice had entered English-language cookbooks. The instruction to broil on "a lively, clear coal fire" points to the coal range and the hinged wire broiler used over an open grate.