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Entrecote, Soyer
Procure two one-and-a-half-pound entrecotes of the sirloin with bone adhering. Neatly trim and gently flatten with a cleaver, season all around with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and teaspoon of chopped parsley. Lightly rub with a tablespoon butter, roll in bread crumbs, arrange on a broiler and broil for eight minutes on each side; remove, place on a large hot dish, pour a beefsteak sauce around and serve.
A plain broiled steak dressed up with a crumb coating, from a book that liked attaching famous chefs' names to simple things. Two details need attention: what cut to buy, and how far the meat sits from the heat.
- The cutEntrecôte literally means "between the ribs," and in French usage it is a boneless rib steak; the recipe's "of the sirloin with bone adhering" points instead to a bone-in strip or short-loin steak. A 1½-lb bone-in steak will be roughly 1½ inches thick. Ask for two of them, or one large porterhouse cut thick and split after cooking.
- Distance from the heatEight minutes a side under a modern overhead broiler set close will scorch the breadcrumbs long before the centre is done. Position the rack 5-6 inches down, or work over a charcoal or gas grill with the crumbed steak set slightly away from the hottest spot.
- Doneness, not clock timeSixteen minutes total suits a thick steak taken to medium by period standards. For a 1½-inch steak, pull at 125-130F internal for medium-rare, 135F for medium, and rest 5-8 minutes before serving.
- The crumbs are the hingeButter, then crumbs, then heat: the coating only holds if it is pressed on firmly and the steak goes straight to the fire. Let it sit and the salt draws moisture, the crumbs slump, and they slide off in the turning. Turn once, with tongs, never a fork.
- Beefsteak sauceA period term that could mean either a made brown sauce given elsewhere in such books or one of the bottled brown sauces then on sale; the recipe does not say which. Any commercial steak sauce or a Worcestershire-spiked pan sauce is in keeping.
- Seasoning quantitiesA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper for three pounds of meat is on the light side by current practice; season more generously if the steaks are thick.
- YieldThree pounds of bone-in steak serves four generously, six if carved off the bone and fanned onto a platter as the "large hot dish" implies.
Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) was among the most famous cooks in Victorian England — chef at the Reform Club in London, inventor of kitchen gadgetry, author of The Gastronomic Regenerator, and organiser of soup kitchens during the Irish famine before going out to reform the army's cooking in the Crimea. By the time this book was compiled, half a century after his death, his name had become a label attached to dishes he may or may not have devised, much as "Escoffier" or "Careme" were used; the attribution should be read as homage rather than documentation. The "beefsteak sauce" poured around rather than over the meat may be a bottled proprietary condiment — such sauces were widely sold by then — or a made sauce given elsewhere in the book; the recipe does not specify.