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Chateaubriand, Seligman
Remove a little of the fat from around a two-pound piece tenderloin of beef, envelop in a towel in upright position, flatten with a cleaver to one and a half inches in thickness, season all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons melted butter in a casserole, lay in the chateaubriand and gently fry for eight minutes on each side. Sprinkle over six small, finely chopped shallots and six finely chopped, well-cleaned, fresh mushrooms, then pour in a gill white wine and place in oven for fifteen minutes, frequently basting meanwhile. Remove to oven door and arrange glazed chestnuts around the chateaubriand. Cut two ounces raw beef marrow in thin slices, place on top of beef, sprinkle a little salt over, reset in oven for six minutes, remove, cover casserole and serve.
A whole-cut roast finished in one pan, written for a cook who already knew what a chateaubriand should look like coming out of the oven. The gaps worth filling are the oven temperature, the vessel, and the doneness.
- The hinge: cook to temperature, not to the clockEight minutes a side plus twenty-one in the oven will take a 1.5-inch tenderloin well past pink. Pull it at 125-130F in the centre for medium-rare and let the timings bend around that; the marrow stage can be done under a broiler in a minute or two if the beef is already there.
- "Casserole""Casserole" — in French kitchen usage of the period this is the stovetop pan, not a covered baking dish; the recipe itself takes it from burner to oven. Use a heavy skillet or braiser that can do both, ideally just large enough to hold the meat with room for the shallots.
- A gillA gill — half a cup, 4 fl oz by American measure (5 fl oz if the book is following British measure). Dry white wine, and it should reduce to a syrupy pan sauce rather than poach the beef.
- Oven heatOven heat — no temperature is given, ranges of the period not being thermostatically controlled. For a piece this thick, already coloured on both sides, something around 425F works.
- Flattening in the towelThe point is uniform thickness so the centre cooks evenly, not tenderising. A cleaver flat or the base of a small pan works; the towel keeps the surface from tearing. Bring the meat to room temperature first.
- Beef marrowBeef marrow — ask a butcher for marrow bones and dig the marrow out, or buy canoe-cut bones. Soaking the raw marrow in cold salted water for an hour and patting it dry before slicing helps purge blood and off flavours. Two ounces is roughly what one large bone yields.
- Glazed chestnutsAssumed knowledge, with no recipe supplied here: peeled chestnuts simmered in stock with butter and a little sugar until the liquid coats them. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts are the practical substitute.
- Yield and restingYield and resting — two pounds of trimmed tenderloin serves three to four. Rest it five to ten minutes off the heat before carving across the grain into thick slices; "remove to oven door" appears to mean keeping it warm without cooking it further.
Chateaubriand is the thick centre cut of the beef fillet, and the name is generally traced to the household of the writer and diplomat François-René de Chateaubriand in the 1820s, the dish usually credited to his cook Montmireil — an attribution that is traditional rather than documented. By the time this book was compiled the term had settled into two meanings in professional kitchens: the cut itself, and the classical service of it with a shallot-and-wine reduction. Adding sliced raw marrow over the meat at the last moment is a nineteenth-century French flourish that survives now mainly in bordelaise sauce and in roasted marrow bones; marrow was cheap, rich, and expected on a good table, which is why the recipe assumes the reader can lay hands on two ounces of it without comment.