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Entrecotes, Parisienne
Neatly trim and flatten two tender sirloin steaks, one and a quarter pounds each. Mix on a plate tablespoon oil, teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, repeatedly turn the steaks in the seasoning, arrange on a broiler, broil for six minutes on each side, remove and arrange them on a baking dish. Place in a bowl three finely chopped shallots, half bean chopped garlic, half teaspoon chopped parsley, half teaspoon chopped chives, two ounces finely chopped raw beef marrow, half ounce butter, half teaspoon meat glaze and the juice of half a sound lemon. Sharply stir until thoroughly amalgamated, then spread this preparation over the steaks, set them in the oven for five minutes, remove, baste them with their butter and serve.
A steak with a marrow-and-shallot compound butter, close to what French kitchens call beurre à la bordelaise. Two things need attention: the oven temperature is never given, and the marrow has to be sourced and handled before you start.
- Marrow firstTwo ounces of chopped raw marrow means the soft interior of leg or shin bones, which a butcher will saw lengthwise on request. Soak the bones in cold salted water for several hours, push the marrow out in one piece, then chop it cold; warm marrow smears rather than dices.
- The missing oven temperatureThe finishing step is a brief blast to melt and set the butter, not further cooking. The book gives no temperature at all; a hot oven for the stated five minutes would suit, and a broiler set high for two to three minutes does the same job.
- Meat glazeGlace de viande: veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a spoonful of heavily reduced homemade stock stands in; a stock cube does not, being mostly salt.
- "Half bean" of garlicThe book measures garlic in "beans"; the phrase is usually taken to mean a piece about the size of a bean, so half of that is a very small amount, a sliver of a clove. The garlic is meant to whisper behind the shallots, not lead.
- Entrecôte versus sirloinEntrecôte is properly the cut between the ribs, sold in the US as ribeye or a boneless rib steak. The recipe's substitution of sirloin works, but the fattier rib steak carries the marrow butter better.
- Rethinking the timingSix minutes a side plus five in the oven will take a steak of ordinary thickness well past medium. The recipe tells you to flatten the steaks, so their finished thickness is uncertain; use a thermometer and pull them at 120-125F before the oven step, since the butter finish adds several degrees.
- Amalgamating the butterEverything should be cold and stirred vigorously into a stiff paste. If the marrow softens and the mixture loosens, chill it for ten minutes before spreading, or it will slide off the meat.
- YieldTwo steaks of 1¼ lb each serve four generously; the recipe itself gives no number of servings. Rest the meat briefly after the oven and spoon the melted butter back over at the table.
Entrecôte à la parisienne sits in the family of grilled-steak dishes built on one idea: a quickly grilled cut finished with a cold compound butter carrying marrow, shallot and herbs. Beef marrow was ordinary kitchen material then, cheap and prized for the silky richness it gives as it melts, and it survives in classic form in sauce bordelaise and in the marrow bones served alongside pot-au-feu. The glace de viande called for here suggests a kitchen with a stockpot always going; its appearance in a book called The International Cook Book fits the period's assumption that the ambitious American household cook should be working, at least in outline, from the French repertoire. The name entrecôte means literally "between the ribs," and here it is applied loosely to a sirloin steak rather than to the rib cut proper.