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Delmonico's Steaks, Bordelaise
Nicely trim and lightly flatten with a cleaver two tender sirloin steaks of one and a quarter pounds each. Mix on a plate one teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper, with a tablespoon oil and gently roll the steaks in the seasoning; arrange on the broiler and broil on a brisk fire for eight minutes on each side. Remove and dress on a hot dish. Pour hot Bordelaise sauce, prepared, over and serve.
A straightforward broiled steak whose only real trap is the timing, which belongs to an era that liked beef cooked through.
- The timing is the hingeEight minutes per side on a brisk fire will take a steak of ordinary thickness well past medium. Judge by internal temperature instead: 125F for rare, 130-135F for medium rare, and rest five to ten minutes before slicing.
- "Brisk fire" and the broilerThe original broiler is a hinged wire grid over live coals, not an overhead element. A charcoal or gas grill run hot, or a heavy cast-iron pan brought to smoking, reproduces it better than a domestic oven broiler.
- Steak size and yieldTwo steaks of 1 1/4 lb each is about 2 1/2 lb of beef, enough for four by modern appetites; the recipe itself gives no number of servings. Buy them cut thick, about 1 1/2 inches, so the surface can char before the centre overcooks.
- Sirloin then and nowA turn-of-the-century sirloin steak was cut across the whole loin and often included bone and a strip of tenderloin. The closest supermarket equivalents are a thick-cut top sirloin, a strip steak, or a porterhouse.
- Flattening with a cleaverA light flattening chiefly evens the thickness so the steak cooks uniformly rather than seriously tenderising it. Use the flat of a heavy blade or a mallet and stop as soon as the steak is level.
- Seasoning in oilOne teaspoon salt and half a teaspoon white pepper for 2 1/2 lb of beef is a reasonable ratio. The recipe has you roll the meat in the seasoned oil rather than oiling the grate, though it gives no reason for doing so.
- The sauce is elsewhereBordelaise here is assumed "prepared" from another entry in the book: red wine reduced with shallot and thyme, finished with demi-glace and, classically, poached marrow. Have it hot and made before the steaks go on, since they will not wait.
Delmonico's, opened in New York in the 1820s and for decades the standard against which American restaurants were measured, gave its name to a whole family of dishes and cuts that cookbook writers invoked as shorthand for luxury; arguably, by the time this book appeared, "Delmonico's" on a recipe title may have been as much a claim to prestige as a statement of origin. The sauce is genuinely French: bordelaise takes its name from Bordeaux and its red wine, and in the classic form is a wine and shallot reduction bound with demi-glace and garnished with beef marrow. The pairing of a plainly broiled American steak with a properly built French sauce looks like the kind of compromise often said to have defined grand-hotel cooking of the period, when kitchens staffed by French-trained chefs are thought to have been serving a clientele that wanted its beef recognisable.