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Filet of Beef, Bowers
Neatly trim off the fat and skin from a two-and-a-half-pound piece fine filet of beef. Have fifteen very thin strips of raw, lean ham, then with a small larding needle carefully lard the top of the filet with the pork, and underneath with the ham. Lay the filet in an oval earthern or stone jar, add one sliced carrot, one sliced onion, one crushed bean of garlic, two branches parsley, one branch chervil, sprig thyme, sprig sage, blade mace, two bay leaves, one clove, two tablespoons tarragon vinegar, one gill white wine, half a gill sherry, tablespoon cognac and two gills water, season with a heaping teaspoon salt and half teaspoon freshly crushed black pepper. Cover the vessel and let infuse in a cool place eight hours at least. Lift it up, place it on a small roasting tin, baste with a little melted butter and set in a lively oven for thirty-five minutes, remove, dress on a hot dish and keep hot. Place the marinade in a saucepan and let reduce on the open fire till nearly dry, then pour in one and a half gills of demi-glace and boil for five minutes. Pick off the stems from a pound of sweet grapes, place them in a frying pan with tablespoon melted butter and brown till a nice golden colour, arrange them around the filet, strain the sauce over and serve.
A marinated, larded beef tenderloin roast in the classic hotel style, finished with demi-glace and browned grapes. The measurements are pre-metric restaurant shorthand and the oven instruction is the one place the recipe can go wrong.
- Gills and other old measuresA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz. So the marinade takes 1/2 cup white wine, 1/4 cup sherry, 1 cup water, and the sauce 3/4 cup demi-glace. A "bean" of garlic is simply a clove; a "blade" of mace is one piece of the dried aril, roughly 1/4 teaspoon ground.
- A lively ovenThat means hot, generally taken as somewhere around 425-450F. At that heat a trimmed 2.5 lb centre-cut tenderloin may well reach medium-rare before the 35 minutes are up, so cook to an internal temperature of 125-130F and start checking at 20 minutes. Rest 10 minutes before slicing.
- Larding, and what to do insteadThe larding needle threads strips of firm back fat through the meat because tenderloin has almost none of its own. Few kitchens have the needle now; barding is the usual substitute, wrapping the filet in thin sheets of fatback or unsmoked pancetta and tying it, removed for the last few minutes if you want colour.
- The pork and the hamThe ingredient list gives fifteen thin strips of raw lean ham, but the instruction lards the top with pork and the underside with ham, which means fat pork above and lean ham below. Use fatback or salt pork for the top strips and prosciutto or another raw unsmoked ham for the underside.
- Marinate coldEight hours in a "cool place" meant a larder. Do it in the refrigerator, in a non-reactive dish, and dry the surface thoroughly before it goes in the oven or the meat will steam rather than brown.
- Demi-glaceA brown sauce made by combining espagnole with brown stock and reducing it, kept as a standing item in a professional kitchen. Good commercial demi-glace concentrate is the practical route; a well-reduced beef stock with a spoonful of tomato and a little arrowroot is an acceptable stand-in but will be thinner.
- The grapesBuy seedless, and pick a firm variety. They want a fast browning in hot butter, two or three minutes, just until they blister and catch colour. Left longer they collapse into jam and lose the point, which is the pop of sharp fruit against the sauce.
- Strain the sauceThe reduced marinade carries carrot, onion, herb stems and a whole clove. Pass it through a fine sieve before it goes over the meat, pressing the solids to get the flavour without the debris.
- YieldTwo and a half pounds of trimmed filet serves six generously, eight at a formal dinner where it is one of several courses, which is how the book assumes it will be eaten.
The International Cook Book (1906) was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this dish carries the marks of that kitchen: a proper name attached to a garnish, a standing demi-glace assumed to be on hand, and a larded filet treated as an ordinary Tuesday. Naming a preparation after a patron or colleague was a common courtesy of the grand-restaurant era, and "Bowers" may well be such a dedication, though the person behind it has not survived in the record. The technique itself is older than the restaurant: larding lean cuts with fat pork and steeping them in a wine-and-vinegar marinade with root vegetables and herbs is straight out of the French daube tradition, adapted here to a cut that roasts in half an hour rather than braising all afternoon. The browned grapes set sweet fruit against a dark reduced sauce, a fashionable finish in that era.