French Provincial Cooking (78 page)

To satisfy customers, butchers bone, trim and tie up secondary cuts of meat in a more or less rough and ready manner and sell them at a small amount less than, say, sirloin or prime ribs. The inexperienced housewife puts them in a hot oven to roast and hopes for the best. Ten to one the joint will emerge tough, dry (dryness is the main defect to combat in the cooking of second-class cuts) and impossible to carve. This is partly because the joint is too small for the kind of baking which we call roasting and partly because the meat has been too hastily cut and dressed.

A skilful, experienced butcher treats his meat almost as a tailor does his cloth. If it is stretched out of shape, if there are seams in the wrong places, if he has to make up a respectable-looking joint by adding a piece here, skewering in some fat there, he knows that as soon as the meat is exposed to violent heat it will contract; unnaturally stretched muscles will spring back into place; it will cook unevenly; it will end up looking like a parcel damaged in the Christmas mails. No wonder people say that the cheaper cuts are a false economy. But if that same piece of meat had been stripped of membrane, sinew and gristle before it was rolled and tied, it would be a compact little joint which would keep its shape during cooking and which could be quite successfully roasted.

This is the French method even with what might be termed first-class secondary joints such as topside and the equivalent of our aitchbone, which are used for such delicious dishes as
bœuf mode
and
bœuf bourguignon.
But only in rare instances are these methods practised in England. Even so, the English cook can still make the best of the secondary English joints, such as rolled top rib or a piece of top rump, by cooking them gently, with a little extra liquid to moisten them, and with aromatic vegetables and seasonings to help the flavour, in a closely-covered pot so that all possible moisture is retained; and if they are not so elegant in appearance as the French cuts they will still emerge tender, juicy and well flavoured.

A piece of that cut of beef known as the eye of the sirloin or upper fillet and which the French call
contrefilet
or
faux filet
, bone and all gristle and sinew removed, tied in a compact rectangular shape, weighing between 2
and 3 lb., makes an ideal
small
roasting joint. Expensive, of course, but still cheaper than fillet, and most people would, I think, agree, finer in flavour. (It is shown in the drawing opposite.)

Simply brush the cut surfaces of the meat with olive oil, stand the joint on a grid in a baking tin, put it in the centre of the oven preheated to Gas No. 7, 420 deg. F. After 10 minutes lower the heat to Gas No. 5, 375 deg. F., and cook altogether for just about an hour, basting from time to time with its own fat. Those who like beef very underdone will probably find 45 minutes sufficient.

Potatoes, already all but cooked, can be put in the tin underneath the meat as soon as sufficient fat has run. They will roast beautifully. If any sauce is required apart from the natural juices which run from the beef as it is carved, something very simple, like
maître d’hôtel
butter, to which a little tarragon has been added, is the best solution, unless you like to serve a
sauce
béarnaise,
which is the alternative to the more usual Madeira sauce served in France.

A larger piece of meat does not need very much more cooking; the joint will be longer but not thicker, and it is the thickness which counts.

A
châteaubriand
steak is a cut from the centre and thickest part of the fillet, weighing about 12 oz., and enough for two people. It is too thick to be grilled on an ordinary domestic cooker, as the meat will be too near the flame and will dry up before it is sufficiently cooked. The best solution is, having painted the meat with olive oil and sprinkled it with a little coarsely-ground pepper, to give it about a minute on each side close to the hot grill and then to transfer it, standing on a rack, in a baking tin to a very hot oven, Gas No. 8, 445 deg. F., and roast it for about 12 to 15 minutes.

Serve it with
pommes fondantes
(page 271) and a
sauce béarnaise.

Sometimes a much larger piece of fillet weighing up to about 1
lb. is described as a Châteaubriand.

An
entrecôte
²⁶
is, properly speaking, and as its name implies, a piece of meat cut from between two ribs, from the part of the back known in English as wing-ribs and in French as
train-de-côte.

Slices of meat from the boned
contrefilet,
in English the upper fillet or eye of the sirloin, or from the back ribs, are also frequently sold as
entrecôtes
and, in French restaurants, a slice of rump steak or, indeed, any other slice of beef nicely cut and trimmed to look like a ‘bifteck’ are presented on the menu as
entrecôte.
On the whole, it is a dish to be avoided in France except in high-class restaurants. It is not that the quality of the beef in France is not often excellent and just as good as our own; but like our own it is variable and, again, as in England, restaurateurs are not always conscientious about these matters.

When buying
entrecôtes
to cook at home, one usually allows a steak of a good
-inch thickness, weighing 7 to 8 oz., for each person; the steaks should be seasoned with freshly-milled pepper, lightly coated with oil, and grilled, not too near the flame, for about 4 minutes on each side, salt being added as each side is browned. Do not be misled by the name
entrecôte minute
, often used in connection with these steaks, into thinking that they should be so thin that they are cooked in a minute. It is just a manner of speaking and a thin, flat,
entrecôte
makes a poor, dry steak.

‘The
entrecôte
should be cut 2 fingers thick. Marinate it in a tablespoon of oil, salt and pepper. Prepare a fire of glowing charcoal and put the meat on the grill. Chop together 4 shallots, a good, firm piece of beef marrow and a little handful of parsley. Turn your steak. On the upper surface spread this mixture, and from time to time press it with the heated blade of the knife, so that the marrow softens. When the
entrecôte
is cooked, put it on the serving dish, taking care not to upset the shallot and marrow mixture which is on the top.

‘This is the old way of cooking the
entrecôte à la bordelaise.
In times gone by gourmets did not disdain an invitation to go down into the wine cellars and eat an
entrecôte
with the cellar master and the
tonnelier,
who had a reputation for preparing it well. They made their fire with hoops of chestnut wood from old barrels, and claimed that this gave a particularly good flavour to the meat.

‘Paris restaurateurs serve their
entrecôte à la bordelaise
with a red wine sauce; it does not at all resemble the traditional
entrecôte
of Bordeaux.’

ALCIDE BONTOU:
Traité de Cuisine Bourgeoise Bordelaise

 

To cook and extract the marrow from the beef bones, proceed as follows: have a marrow bone sawn in about 3-inch lengths. If possible buy it the day before you need it and soak it for 12 to 24 hours in cold water, changed several times. This process makes the marrow a much better colour, a pale creamy pink, whereas if cooked straight away it tends to be a rather unappetising grey. Put the bones in cold water to cover, bring slowly to the boil and allow to barely simmer for about 20 minutes. Scoop the marrow out with the handle of a small spoon.

For 2 thick
entrecôtes
(see recipe for grilled
entrecôte
) chop 1 shallot very fine; work it with 2 oz. of butter, a teaspoon of chopped parsley, a drop of lemon juice and a scrap of freshly-milled pepper. While your steaks, previously coated with oil, seasoned with freshly-milled pepper and, at the last minute, with salt, are grilling, get a fireproof serving dish really hot. Place it over a saucepan of boiling water. When the steaks are ready, and rather underdone, put your prepared butter in the dish. Put the steaks on the top. Cover them. Leave for 3 or 4 minutes. Then spoon the just melted butter over the steaks and serve them at once, with a purée of potatoes to help mop up the delicious butter sauce.
Tournedos
or fillet steaks can be done in the same way.

Have the
tournedos
cut from the fillet or undercut, about an inch thick and weighing in the region of 6 oz. each. An hour or so before cooking them, paint them with olive oil and rub a little coarsely-milled pepper on both sides.

Heat a thick frying-pan and put in your steaks without adding any extra fat. Let them sizzle on each side; pour in, for 2 steaks, a claret glass (about 4 oz.) of white wine. It will at once bubble fiercely because of the heat of the pan. After a few seconds turn the heat low and let the steaks simmer for about 4 minutes. Remove them to a hot serving dish. Turn up the heat again and reduce the sauce to the consistency of a syrup. Off the fire, add 2 oz. of butter cut into little pieces. Shake and rotate the pan
over
the flame but not
on
it until the butter has amalgamated with the wine and thickened it. Quickly add a little finely-chopped parsley or tarragon. Pour the sauce over and round the steaks and serve at once, with potatoes if you like, or a few mushrooms.

This recipe is given by Edmond Richardin in
L’Art du Bien Manger
(1913 edition), one of the most imaginative and attractive cookery books in the French language. Richardin, himself a native of Lorraine, was the owner of a celebrated restaurant in Nancy. The Vaux is in western Lorraine, not far from Verdun:

 

‘Take some fillet steaks, grill them and season them; chop some hard-boiled eggs, one for each steak. Mix them with some chopped
fines herbes,
moisten with lemon juice, add salt and pepper. Spread this mixture on a well-heated fireproof serving dish; place the steaks on top, put some good fresh butter on top of each steak. Heat over a gentle fire before serving.’

‘O, scent of the daubes of my childhood!

‘During the holidays, at Gemeaux, in the month of August, when we arrived in my grandmother’s dark kitchen on Sunday after Vespers, it was lit by a ray of sunshine in which the dust and the flies were dancing, and there was a sound like a little bubbling spring. It was a daube, which since midday had been murmuring gently on the stove, giving out sweet smells which brought tears to your eyes. Thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, spices, the wine of the marinade and the
fumet
of the meat were becoming transformed under the magic wand which is the fire, into a delicious whole, which was served about seven o’clock in the evening, so well cooked and so tender that it was carved with a spoon.’