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Mignons of Beef, Duval
Trim a little fat from top of a two-pound filet of beef, then cut it in six nice even mignons. Split each mignon open, but without separating, season the inside and all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Finely chop an ounce raw lean veal, the equivalent of one-quarter ounce of raw lean ham and a half ounce raw beef marrow; place in a mortar with a half teaspoon finely chopped truffle, one egg yolk, a saltspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne and half saltspoon grated nutmeg; thoroughly pound to a smooth paste, then evenly spread this paste inside of mignons, close them, baste one side with a little melted butter and lightly roll them in fresh bread crumbs. Heat two tablespoons good melted butter in a frying pan, place the mignons in one beside another and briskly cook for four minutes on each side. Remove, dress them on six freshly prepared round toasts same size as the filets, place on a hot dish and keep hot. Peel six large heads fresh mushrooms, place in the pan of mignons and fry two minutes on each side, sprinkle a little salt over, then arrange them on top of filets, pour a Perigueux sauce over them and serve.
A stuffed tournedos in the grand-restaurant style: filet medallions butterflied around a truffled forcemeat, crumbed on one face, pan-fried and set on toast under Périgueux sauce. The forcemeat is the hinge — it must be pounded absolutely smooth or it will fall out in lumps when the meat is cut.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. The recipe's seasoning therefore comes to roughly a teaspoon of salt on the meat plus a further quarter teaspoon in the forcemeat, with a quarter teaspoon each of cayenne and an eighth of nutmeg.
- MignonsSix mignons from a two-pound trimmed filet gives medallions of about 5 oz each, cut roughly 1.25 inches thick. Butterfly each horizontally almost through, so it opens like a book and can be closed again around the stuffing; a couple of turns of butcher's twine round the circumference keeps them shut in the pan.
- The forcemeatAn ounce of veal, a quarter ounce of ham and half an ounce of marrow is a very small quantity — only a few tablespoons of paste divided among six steaks, which is right. A small food processor does the work of the mortar in seconds, but chill the marrow first or it smears rather than binds.
- Beef marrowAsk a butcher for marrow bones and scoop the raw marrow out, or buy cut marrow bones and push it free with a thumb after 20 minutes in cold water. There is no true substitute; suet is harder and will not melt into the meat the same way.
- TruffleHalf a teaspoon of chopped truffle in the forcemeat, and truffle again in the sauce: truffle is what defines a Périgueux sauce. Preserved black truffle in a jar works; truffle oil does not, since it flattens out under heat.
- Cooking time and donenessFour minutes a side on a stuffed medallion of this thickness will leave the beef around medium-rare. Because the filling contains finely chopped raw veal and egg yolk, you may prefer to treat it as a stuffing rather than a steak and cook until the centre reaches 160F on an instant-read thermometer — which will take longer than the four minutes a side given here and will carry the beef past medium-rare; with thicker medallions, finish them in a moderate oven rather than pushing the pan time.
- Crumbs on one side onlyOnly one face is buttered and crumbed. Put that face down first in the hot butter so it sets and colours, and keep the heat at a steady medium-high — the butter will brown, which is wanted, but at full heat it burns before the beef is done.
- Mushroom heads"Heads" means caps, stems removed. Peeling was standard when mushrooms came in gritty from the bed; cultivated ones today need only a wipe. Two minutes a side in the beef pan is enough for a large cap.
- Périgueux sauceA demi-glace finished with Madeira and chopped truffle. Made from scratch it is a two-day proposition, so a common modern shortcut is to reduce a good beef stock with a splash of Madeira until it coats a spoon, then mount it with butter and add the truffle off the heat.
- YieldSix mignons, one per person as a main course with the toast beneath serving as the plate. Have the toasts cut to the exact diameter of the filets and made at the last minute; soggy toast is the usual failure here.
The name points to the Bouillons Duval, the chain of cheap Paris eating-houses founded in the 1850s by the butcher Pierre-Louis Duval, whose success made "Duval" a byword in French dining — though a truffled, marrow-stuffed filet under Périgueux sauce belongs to the opposite end of the trade from the bouillon counters, and garnish names in this period were attached freely to restaurateurs, patrons and cities alike. What the recipe really reflects is the late nineteenth-century American grand hotel kitchen, where French classical garnishes were catalogued by name and a cook was expected to know that Périgueux meant truffle and Madeira without being told. The technique of splitting a tournedos and hiding a spoonful of fine forcemeat inside is a restaurant economy of a particular kind: a very small amount of veal, ham, marrow and truffle is made to flavour the whole of an expensive cut, and the diner meets the truffle twice, once in the sauce and once as a surprise in the centre of the meat.