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Tenderloin with Marsala
(Filetto al marsala) Roll a piece of the tenderloin, tie it and, if it is about two pounds, put it on the fire with a middle-sized onion cut in thin slices, some thin slices of ham and a piece of butter, seasoning but moderately with salt and pepper. When it is browned from all sides and the onion is consumed, sprinkle a pinch of flour, let this take color and then pour some soup stock or water. Make it simmer on a low fire, then rub the gravy through a sieve, skim off the fat and with this and half a small tumbler of Marsala or Sherry wine put it back on the fire to simmer again. Serve with the gravy neither too liquid nor too thick.
The filet can also be larded with bacon and cooked in butter and Marsala only. 86
A stovetop braise-roast of whole beef tenderloin, written for a cook who expects to judge doneness by eye. The one thing to get right is heat and time: tenderloin has almost no connective tissue to gain from long simmering, so the "low fire" stage should be short.
- Don't overcook the filetA 2 lb tied tenderloin needs roughly 25-35 minutes total in a covered heavy pan over low heat, pulled at 125-130F internal for medium-rare and rested 10 minutes. Beyond about 140F it turns dry and grainy no matter how good the gravy is.
- "Put it on the fire"This means a pan on the stovetop, not the oven. Brown over fairly high heat, then drop to a bare simmer; the recipe does not specify a lid, though covering helps keep the liquid from reducing away.
- "Until the onion is consumed"The sliced onion should collapse and go golden-brown and jammy against the bottom of the pan, giving up its water and beginning to fry in the butter. That fond is the body of the sauce.
- The hamRecipes of this type commonly use prosciutto or pancetta. The original leaves the slices whole; chopping them and adding them with the onion helps the fat render. Ordinary sweet-cured American deli ham is sweeter than intended; a dry-cured ham is closer.
- Half a small tumblerPeriod tumbler sizes varied; if a small one is reckoned at roughly 6 fl oz, half of that is about 3 fl oz, a generous 1/3 cup. Use dry Marsala (secco) or a dry sherry; sweet cooking Marsala will make the gravy cloying.
- Sieving and skimmingPush the onion and ham through a fine sieve rather than discarding them, then let the liquid settle a minute and spoon the butterfat off the top. Reducing this with the Marsala for a few minutes gives the "neither too liquid nor too thick" consistency, about the coating thickness of cream.
- Soup stockA light beef or veal stock, unsalted or lightly salted, since the ham and the reduction both concentrate the salt; the original's instruction to season "but moderately" may reflect the same concern.
- YieldTwo pounds of tenderloin serves four to six. Untie, slice across the grain about half an inch thick, and spoon the gravy over at the table so the slices don't sit in it and continue cooking.
The Italian Cook Book (1919), compiled by Maria Gentile for American readers, draws heavily on the Italian domestic tradition codified by Pellegrino Artusi, whose La scienza in cucina circulated in edition after edition from 1891 and includes closely comparable treatments of filetto. Marsala, the fortified wine of the Sicilian port of the same name, was developed for the English export trade in the later eighteenth century and was often used in the Italian kitchen for deglazing and pan sauces, much the way Madeira and sherry functioned in English and French cooking. Note too the small quantity of meat treated with real ceremony: tenderloin was expensive, and two pounds stretched across a family with the help of a sieved onion-and-ham gravy is a thoroughly period way of eating well.