French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [193]
‘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.
ENTRECÔTE À LA BRETONNE
RIB STEAK WITH PARSLEY BUTTER
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.
TOURNEDOS AU VIN BLANC
TOURNEDOS WITH WHITE WINE
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.
BIFTECKS À LA MODE DU PAYS DE VAUX
FILLET STEAKS WITH BUTTER AND HERBS
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