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Tenderloin Cutlets, Newport
Chop exceedingly fine one pound tenderloin of beef, half a pound raw lean veal, four ounces raw beef marrow and place these in a bowl on the ice. Season with a half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon cayenne, one saltspoon grated nutmeg, one saltspoon mixed allspice, and stir with wooden spoon five minutes. Peel, wash carefully, drain and cut in small squares six fresh, sound mushrooms, and brown in a frying pan with a tablespoon butter five minutes. Lift up with a skimmer and add to the bowl, with one ounce cooked ham cut in small squares, one tablespoon brandy, one tablespoon sherry, a half gill cream, and thoroughly mix with wooden spoon three minutes. Divide this preparation into twelve equal parts and give them nice cutlet forms, roll in melted butter, then in fresh bread crumbs. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a frying pan, lay in the cutlets one beside another, and gently fry five minutes on each side. Pour a Bearnaise sauce on a hot dish, dress the cutlets, one overlapping another, crown-like, over the sauce; adjust a white frill of paper at the end of each cutlet and serve.
A ground-meat "cutlet" shaped to imitate a chop, richly bound with marrow and cream. Nothing here is difficult, but the mixture must stay cold or it will not hold its form in the pan.
- Keep everything on iceMarrow and cream are what make these tender, and both will smear and leak if the mixture warms. Chill the bowl, work quickly, and refrigerate the shaped cutlets 30 minutes before breading.
- Old measuresA gill is half a cup, so a half gill of cream is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon.
- "Mixed allspice"Ambiguous in period books: it can mean plain ground allspice or a blended "mixed spice" of allspice, clove, mace and cinnamon. A quarter teaspoon of either suits the dish.
- Beef marrowAsk a butcher for marrow bones and scoop the raw marrow out, or ask for it removed. If you cannot get it, four ounces of finely chopped beef fat or fatback is the nearest stand-in; the cutlets will be firmer and less silky.
- Chopping, not grinding"Exceedingly fine" by hand gives a better texture than a machine. If you do use a grinder or food processor, chill the meat until stiff and pulse -- overworked meat turns pasty and springy.
- MushroomsPeeling was standard when mushrooms arrived gritty and were often large and mature. Cultivated button or cremini need only wiping and trimming.
- FryingButter alone at the heat needed for five minutes a side will darken; clarified butter, or butter with a spoon of neutral oil, protects the crumbs. Medium heat, and check that the centres reach 160F, since this is ground beef and veal.
- The sauce is the workBearnaise should be made after the cutlets are shaped and held warm in a bowl over -- not in -- barely steaming water. It is an egg-yolk emulsion and will curdle if it gets hot, so keep it off direct heat while you fry.
- YieldTwelve cutlets from about a pound and three-quarters of meat: six servings as a main course, twelve as a first course.
- Paper frillsThe frill is decorative only, clipped to the narrow end to mimic a chop bone. Skip it without loss, or cut strips of parchment and fringe them.
This is hotel cooking of the period, from an era when a kitchen's skill was judged partly on its ability to make one thing look convincingly like another: forcemeat of beef and veal pressed into the outline of a chop, breaded, and finished with the paper frill that would ordinarily hide a protruding bone. The garnish name "Newport" belongs to the habit of tagging dishes with fashionable places; Newport, Rhode Island was then the summer address of American wealth, and such names generally signal a rich, expensive-tasting composition rather than any documented local origin.