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Tournedos, Rossini
Cut from a two-pound piece well-trimmed tenderloin of beef six even slices, trim and neatly flatten them, season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, then lightly baste with oil. Arrange on broiler and broil over a brisk charcoal fire for three minutes on each side, remove and dress on a hot dish over six round pieces freshly prepared toasts. Dip a teaspoon in lukewarm water and scoop six thin pieces of pate de foie gras from a small tureen, arrange a piece on top of each filet, pour a hot Perigueux sauce over the filets, set in oven for two minutes and serve.
A classic composed dish that depends less on technique than on timing: three elements are cooked or warmed separately and assembled at the last moment. The hinge is the final two minutes in the oven, which is meant to gloss the sauce, not to cook the foie gras.
- The cut and the yieldTwo pounds of trimmed tenderloin cut into six slices gives tournedos of roughly 5 oz each; the recipe specifies no thickness, but once lightly flattened they will be around an inch. Serves six as a main course. Ask for centre-cut fillet; the tapered tail end will not give even rounds.
- "Brisk charcoal fire"Direct, high heat — coals fully ashed over and no more than a hand's width below the grate, or a heavy cast-iron pan brought to smoking point. Three minutes a side at that heat leaves a slice of this thickness rare to medium-rare, which is the intention.
- FlatteningA light press with the flat of a cleaver or the heel of the hand, only enough to make the round even. Pounded thin, the steaks overcook in the time given.
- Pâté de foie gras from a "tureen"Pâté de foie gras from a "tureen" -- Most likely a small terrine of foie gras rather than a smooth spreadable liver pâté, though the warmed spoon and the word "scoop" suggest something soft enough to lift in curved slices. A block or terrine of foie gras will serve, and the warmed-spoon trick still works.
- Périgueux saucePérigueux sauce -- A demi-glace finished with Madeira and chopped truffle, named for Périgueux, the town in the truffle country of Périgord. A good reduced veal stock with Madeira and truffle — or truffle paste — is the practical route; jarred demi-glace concentrate also works.
- The two minutes in the ovenKeep it genuinely brief; the recipe gives no oven temperature, and the point is to gloss the sauce rather than to cook the foie gras, which will slump if held too long in heat. An alternative is to nap the plated tournedos with sauce brought to a boil and set the foie gras on last.
- The toastCut rounds slightly smaller than the steaks. The recipe calls simply for freshly prepared toast; frying the rounds in butter instead helps them absorb sauce without disintegrating.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper across six steaks is about right for meat this rich, but season just before it hits the heat. Salt is added again only if the sauce is under-seasoned.
Tournedos Rossini is named for the composer Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), who retired from opera in middle age and spent his later years in Paris cultivating a reputation as a gourmand; the pairing of his name with beef, foie gras and truffle is generally traced to Parisian restaurant cooking of the mid-nineteenth century, with the invention variously credited to Carême, Dugléré and others, none of it firmly documented. The word tournedos for a round slice from the fillet is likewise the subject of competing folk etymologies. What is certain is the dish's institutional life: by the time Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, compiled this book, Rossini garnish had become part of the standard grand-restaurant vocabulary, and its appearance here — charcoal broiler, imported terrine of foie gras, truffled Périgueux sauce — marks the recipe as belonging to the professional kitchen rather than the family one.