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Broiled Sirloin Steaks, Maitre D'Hotel (Have two fine tender sirloin)
Have two fine, tender sirloin steaks of one pound and a quarter each. Flatten them evenly and nicely with a cleaver. Pour a tablespoon good oil on a plate, turn the steaks in the oil several times, then season with a teaspoon salt and a light teaspoon white pepper, evenly divided all over. Arrange them on a broiler and broil them on a brisk charcoal fire for six minutes on each side. Remove, dress on a hot dish; spread the maitre d'hotel butter over the steaks and serve as rapidly as possible.
A plain steak recipe whose success rests almost entirely on the heat source and on the compound butter it is named for. Two points need translating: the "broiler" here is a gridiron over live coals, and the maître d'hôtel butter is assumed knowledge.
- Maître d'hôtel butterThe dish is named for the butter, which the recipe does not spell out: soften 4 oz butter and work in about 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, the juice of half a lemon, and salt and white pepper. Make it ahead and keep it cold in a log so slices can be laid on the hot meat, where it melts into a sauce.
- "Broiler" means a gridironHere a broiler is a gridiron or wire broiler held over coals, so this is grilling in modern terms. A charcoal or gas grill run hot is the faithful equivalent; an overhead oven broiler will work but gives you no smoke and less crust.
- Cut and thicknessA 1 1/4 lb sirloin steak of this period was probably somewhere around an inch thick. Two of them would serve roughly four people; the recipe itself does not say.
- Six minutes a side is longOn a genuinely brisk fire, twelve minutes total will bring an inch-thick steak to medium-well. Cook to internal temperature instead: 125F for rare, 130-135F for medium-rare, 145F for medium, pulling the meat about 5F short since it climbs while it rests.
- Flattening with a cleaverThe flat of a cleaver is used to even the thickness, not to tenderise. Tap gently on the thicker end only; pounding a sirloin thin defeats the point of the cut.
- Oil on a plateTurning the steaks in a tablespoon of oil on a plate is an efficient way to coat them thinly, which is what you want on a grill. Season after oiling, as the recipe directs, so the salt sticks.
- Rest, despite the instruction"Serve as rapidly as possible" is about getting the butter onto hot meat. Give the steaks five minutes on the hot dish with the butter on top; it melts, the juices settle, and nothing is lost.
- White pepperWhite pepper was widely used in professional kitchens of the period, the usual explanation being that no black specks would mar a pale sauce or a dressed dish. Black pepper tastes better on grilled beef if appearance is not a concern.
The International Cook Book was assembled by Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry reads exactly like a restaurant line cook's card: weights given per portion, seasoning measured out, and the finishing butter taken for granted. Maître d'hôtel butter — butter worked with parsley, lemon and pepper — is one of the oldest and simplest of the French compound butters, generally traced to early nineteenth-century Parisian practice; the name is often said to refer to the headwaiter who might finish a dish at the table rather than to any particular hotel, though this is traditional explanation rather than established fact. Its usefulness in a nineteenth-century steakhouse was practical as much as culinary: a slice of cold seasoned butter laid on grilled meat produces sauce instantly, with no saucier and no pan to deglaze. Charcoal broiling over an open grate was standard in American chophouses and hotel grill rooms of the era, and the flavour it gave was considered very much a part of the dish.