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Filet of Beef, Vitte
Trim off the skin from a two-and-a-half-pound piece tenderloin of beef. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Place a mirepoix in a braising pan, lay the filet over it, pour two tablespoons melted lard over the filet and set in the oven to roast for fifteen minutes; pour in a half pint white broth and half pint demiglace. Cover the pan, reset in the oven for thirty minutes, take out, dress the filet on a dish and keep warm. Skim the fat from the gravy, add two tablespoons freshly grated horseradish, lightly mix, then boil until reduced to half the quantity. Strain the sauce into a small saucepan, add eight anchovies in oil cut into small pieces, and a tablespoon capers; mix well, boil for two minutes more, pour the sauce over the filet and serve.
A braised beef tenderloin finished with a sharp horseradish-anchovy-caper sauce. The recipe assumes a professional kitchen with stock and sauce already on hand, and it gives no oven temperature and no guidance on doneness — the two things a modern cook most needs.
- The hinge: total cooking timeForty-five minutes in a covered pan will take a 2.5 lb tenderloin well past medium and turn an expensive cut grey and dry. Cook to internal temperature instead — 125-130F at the thickest point for medium rare — and expect that to arrive well before the stated time. Rest the filet 10 minutes while you finish the sauce.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. The initial 15-minute uncovered stage is a browning stage and wants 425-450F; once the liquid goes in and the pan is covered, drop to 325-350F.
- MirepoixRoughly diced onion, carrot and celery, about a cup total for this size pan, often with a bay leaf and thyme. It is a flavour bed and a rack, not a garnish — it is strained out with the sauce at the end.
- White broth and demi-glace"White broth" is unsalted light stock, veal or chicken. Demi-glace is a reduced brown sauce; a good jarred demi-glace or a strongly reduced beef stock stands in. Half a pint is one cup of each.
- SaltEight anchovy fillets, capers and a demi-glace all bring salt. Season the meat with a teaspoon if you like, but taste the sauce before adding any more.
- Fresh horseradishGrated horseradish loses much of its heat once cooked, and here it is boiled and then the sauce is reduced by half, so the result is more perfume than bite. If you want the bite, hold back a little grated horseradish and stir it in off the heat at the end. Prepared horseradish in vinegar is not the same thing; drain it if you must use it.
- LardTwo tablespoons of melted lard is simply the browning fat. Clarified butter or a neutral oil will serve in its place.
- YieldA 2.5 lb trimmed tenderloin serves six generously, eight at a formal table with other courses.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when a great many restaurant dishes carried the name of whoever was being flattered that season, and "Vitte" reads like one of them, a surname rather than a place or technique, though no attribution is given here and none should be invented. What is clear is the method: this is classic French braising vocabulary — mirepoix, white broth, demi-glace — applied to a lean cut of beef. The finish is the interesting part. Horseradish with beef is northern and English; anchovy and capers are old savoury seasonings, dissolving into a sauce rather than announcing themselves. The combination gives a filet the sharpness that a lean, mild cut cannot supply on its own, which is precisely why cooks reached for it.