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Sirloin of Beef with Fried Tomatoes
Procure a piece of tender sirloin of beef of two and a half pounds, neatly trim off a little of the fat all around, leaving some. Season with a light tablespoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper.
Lay a mirepoix in a small roasting pan and place the sirloin over. Arrange a very thin slice larding pork over the beef, pour half gill cold water into the pan and set in the oven to roast for thirty-five minutes, frequently turning and basting meanwhile. Remove the beef, lay it on a hot dish and keep warm. Remove all the fat from the gravy, pour in half gill hot demi-glace half gill of tomato sauce and two tablespoons sherry, and boil slowly on the range for five minutes; then strain the gravy over the sirloin. Cut four fresh red tomatoes into four even slices each. Season all around with half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper. Lightly roll in flour. Heat tablespoon melted butter in a large frying pan, place the tomatoes in the pan, one beside another, and briskly fry for three minutes on each side; remove, arrange all around the sirloin, sprinkle a little chopped parsley over and serve.
A short-roasted sirloin with a quick pan gravy, written for a kitchen that kept stock reductions on hand. Two things need translating: the vessels and fats of 1906, and the oven heat the original never states.
- The hinge: judge by temperature, not the clockThirty-five minutes for two and a half pounds only works in a hot oven, and the range of "tender sirloin" cuts sold today varies enormously in thickness. Pull the roast at 125-130F internal for medium-rare and let it rest while you finish the gravy; it will climb several degrees off the heat.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the original simply says "set in the oven." A roast of this size in this time frame implies a hot oven: 425-450F is a reasonable working range. Start there and drop to 400F if the mirepoix begins to scorch.
- MirepoixHere it means a bed of roughly diced carrot, onion and celery, often with a bay leaf and a little thyme, laid under the meat to flavour the pan juices. It is not meant to be served; it is strained out with the gravy.
- Larding porkFresh pork fatback cut in a thin sheet, laid over the meat to baste it as it renders. Unsmoked salt pork sliced very thin is the closest common substitute; streaky bacon works but pushes the dish toward smoke.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is a quarter cup (about 60 ml). A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making "two saltspoons white pepper" half a teaspoon.
- Demi-glaceA reduced brown veal stock, thick enough to coat a spoon. Filippini assumed a pot of it in the kitchen. A well-reduced beef stock, or a good commercial demi-glace concentrate, gives the body the gravy depends on; plain broth will leave it thin.
- Basting and turning"Frequently turning" in a 425F oven means opening the door repeatedly, which costs heat. Turn once or twice at most and accept slightly less even browning rather than a stalled roast.
- The tomatoesThree minutes a side is a lot for a floured tomato slice unless the tomatoes are firm and the butter genuinely hot. Use underripe, meaty fruit, do not crowd the pan, and stop when the flour crust is browned and the slices still hold their shape.
- YieldTwo and a half pounds of sirloin with sixteen tomato slices serves four generously, five at a stretch.
The page belongs to Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906), written by a man who spent decades in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and it reads like it: a small roast finished with demi-glace, tomato sauce and sherry is restaurant grammar, not household grammar. The method assumes a kitchen where a cook can simply draw off half a gill of demi-glace and half a gill of tomato sauce because both are already made. The flour coating on the tomatoes is there to give the slices enough structure to be plated around the meat. Books like this one carried grand-hotel cookery into domestic kitchens, which is why the instructions are precise about seasoning to the saltspoon and silent about the oven: Filippini expected a cook who could read a fire.