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Sirloin of Beef Larded, Voisin
Prepare and lay a mirepoix on a small roasting pan. Neatly trim and lard the surface of a piece of tender sirloin of beef of two and a half pounds, place it over the mirepoix, baste it all over with a tablespoon melted lard and pour two tablespoons water into the pan. Season the beef with a light tablespoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper, well divided all over. Set the pan in a brisk oven to roast for thirty-five minutes, turning the sirloin and frequently basting with its own gravy meanwhile.
Peel three large, raw, ripe, red tomatoes, cut each one into six equal quarters and place in a frying pan with a tablespoon melted butter. Season with half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper; briskly cook on the range for three minutes, then place the pan in the oven to bake for five minutes. Remove and keep warm. Open a pint can string beans and plunge three-quarters of them in a small saucepan of boiling water for two minutes. Drain on a sieve and put back in the saucepan with a tablespoon butter. Season with a light half teaspoon salt and a saltspoon white pepper; mix well with a fork while cooking for one minute and a half. Dress the sirloin on a hot dish, thoroughly skim the fat from the surface of the gravy, then strain the gravy over the sirloin. Garnish one side of the dish with the string beans and the other with the tomatoes, nicely arranged, and serve.
A small roast with two quick vegetable garnishes, written for a cook who already knows what a mirepoix and a larding needle are. The timing is the part that needs the most translation.
- Brisk ovenRead this as a hot oven, roughly 400-450F. The roast is small and the intent is a browned exterior with a rare centre, not a slow braise.
- Thirty-five minutes is a guide, not a ruleA 2.5 lb sirloin in a hot oven reaches medium rare at 125-130F in the centre, which can happen well before 35 minutes if the cut is thick and short rather than long and flat. Use a thermometer and rest the meat 10 minutes before slicing.
- MirepoixHere it means the classic bed of roughly diced carrot, onion and celery, often with a bay leaf and thyme, laid under the meat to flavour the pan juices. It is aromatics for the gravy, not a side dish, and gets strained out at the end.
- LardingThreading strips of firm pork fatback through the meat with a larding needle, to keep a lean cut moist. Neither the needle nor sheet fatback is a supermarket item now; barding the top with thin sheets of fat or fatty bacon, tied on, does much the same work and is a reasonable substitute.
- SaltspoonAbout a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of white pepper on three tomatoes is roughly half a teaspoon.
- The salt is highA "light tablespoon" of salt on 2.5 lb of beef is far more than modern palates expect, and period salt may well have been coarser, so it would not have measured like today's fine table salt. A scant teaspoon of kosher salt per pound is a safer starting point.
- Only two tablespoons of waterThat is deliberate: just enough to keep the mirepoix from scorching and to give you something to baste with. If the pan runs dry, add another spoonful rather than a cupful, or you will steam the roast.
- The canned beansFresh or frozen green beans, boiled two to three minutes and finished in butter, follow the spirit of the instruction. The recipe uses only three-quarters of the can, presumably because a pint is more than the dish needs.
- YieldThe recipe gives no number; the quantities suggest about four, with the tomatoes and beans dressed on either side of the platter as described.
The name points to Voisin, the Paris restaurant on the rue Saint-Honore, prominent during the second half of the nineteenth century and best remembered for the menus it managed to serve during the Prussian siege of 1870-71, when the city's meat supply ran to zoo animals. Attaching a restaurant's or a garnish's name to a dish was common practice in the grand-hotel kitchens of the period: a dish "Voisin" or "Bercy" or "Dubarry" signalled to a professional cook a particular set of accompaniments, in this case buttered green beans on one side and butter-stewed tomato quarters on the other. The presence of a canned vegetable alongside a larded sirloin fits an American professional kitchen of about 1906 working in the French idiom with whatever the store-room actually held.