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Filet of Beef, Ecossaise
Lay a mirepoix into a small roasting pan. Neatly trim a two-and-a-half-pound piece filet of beef. Season all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; lay the filet over the mirepoix, spread a tablespoon melted lard over it, pour two tablespoons water in the pan; set in the oven to bake for thirty-five minutes, turning and basting it occasionally. Remove, pour a poivrade sauce,on a hot dish, place the filet over and serve.
A plainly written roast that assumes you already know two things the text never explains: what a mirepoix is for, and what poivrade sauce is. Neither is difficult, but the recipe collapses without them.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, which in a book of this period means the cook was expected to judge it. Thirty-five minutes for a 2½-lb trimmed filet suggests a fairly hot oven, somewhere in the region of 425-450F; much slower and the surface is unlikely to brown in the time allowed.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockA whole filet is the leanest cut on the animal and has no fat to protect it. Pull it at 125-130F at the thickest point for rare to medium-rare, then rest it 10 minutes before slicing. The 35 minutes in the original is a guide for one particular shape of roast, not a rule.
- MirepoixDiced carrot, onion and celery, often with a bay leaf and thyme, cut coarse and laid in a single layer. Here it is a flavoured rack that keeps the meat off the hot pan bottom and scents the drippings; it is not served.
- Poivrade sauceA brown sauce (espagnole or a good reduced veal stock) with a reduction of vinegar, shallot and coarsely cracked black pepper, strained. It is the point of the dish and needs to be made before the roast goes in the oven, not after.
- LardA tablespoon of melted lard is a basting fat. Clarified butter, beef dripping or a neutral oil all work; whole butter alone will scorch at this heat.
- The two tablespoons of waterThat splash is there only to keep the vegetables and pan juices from carbonising during a short, hot roast. Check it once partway through and add a little more if the pan has gone dry, otherwise the fond will burn and taint the drippings.
- Basting a lean cutTurning and basting a filet repeatedly means opening the oven, which drops the heat. A couple of bastings will do; a trimmed filet browns better if largely left alone.
- Yield2½ lb of trimmed filet serves six generously, eight at a formal table where several courses follow.
Écossaise is simply French kitchen shorthand for "in the Scottish manner," one of the long list of national tags — portugaise, polonaise, milanaise — that professional cooks of the late nineteenth century attached to standard preparations to give a menu variety. The tags were often loose, and by the 1900s several of them meant little more than a particular garnish or sauce agreed on within the trade. The recipe's terseness is characteristic: a mirepoix, a poivrade and the judgment of an oven's heat are all assumed knowledge, so only the assembly is spelled out. Filet of beef itself was a luxury cut in this period.