Tournedos Béarnaise

Tournedos Béarnaise is a dish that can be classified as “haut cuisine”.

It looks as though it takes a long time to cook, but the majority of that time is the time to prepare the meat glaze and to, a lesser extent, the Béarnaise sauce starting from raw produce.  If these are already cooked, the dish then only takes a few minutes.  This, accompanied by the shear quality of the food, make it ideal for a dinner party main course.

Preparation Time: 30 Mins

Cooking Time: 3 Hrs

Total Time: 3½ Hrs

Ingredients

For 2 servings…

4                    Steaks  - tournedos   

  Pepper           

                      Salt          

4                    Croûtons  - round, fried in butter

  Meat glaze      

                      Béarnaise sauce       

                      Potatoes  - new, cooked in butter but soft 

2 tbs               Parsley  - chopped    

For the Béarnaise sauce

2 tbs               Wine  - dry white     

2 tbs               Vinegar  - tarragon   

3                    Peppercorns  - white 

1 tbs               Shallot  - chopped finely         

1 sprig             Tarragon    

1 sprig             Chervil      

80 gms            Butter       

2                    Egg yolks   

½ tsp              Tarragon  - fresh - finely chopped          

½ tsp              Chervil  - fresh - finely chopped 

For the meat glaze

6                    Marrow bones          

110 cl              Water       

1                    Carrot  - diced         

1                    Onion  - diced         

                     Parsley      

1 stick             Celery       

1 sprig             Thyme      

1 leaf              Bay          

Method

For the Béarnaise sauce…

Put the wine, vinegar, peppercorns and shallot into a small saucepan.  Add the chervil and tarragon sprigs, cut into small pieces, then boil gently until the liquid has reduced to about a third.  Strain the reduced liquid through a sieve, pressing the herbs to extract all the flavour.  Leave to cool.

Cut the butter into nut-sized pieces.  Put the cooled reduction and the yolks into a heavy-based saucepan.  Whip the mixture unto it has amalgamated and mix in the salt.

Add a piece of butter to the sauce, put the pan over a very low heat and mix well.  The butter will become incorporated and the sauce will thicken.  Add the remaining pieces of butter, one by one mixing well so that the butter is amalgamated and the sauce thickened.

For the meat-glaze…

Add the chopped herbs.

For the meat-glaze…

Roast the bones in a hot oven (180°C) for 30 minutes.  Scoop out the marrow (for other uses).

Place the bones and a pan of water with the carrot, onions and herbs.  Simmer gently for two hours skimming the surface from time to time.  Sieve the stock.  This is a brown stock.

Reduce the stock on an open fire.  The glaze may be considered sufficiently reduced when it evenly veneers a withdrawn spoon.  The fire used for reducing should be gradually lowered as the concentration progresses, and the last phase should be effected slowly and on a moderate fire.

To cook the tournedos…

Season the tournedos, and grill them.

Set each of the tournedos on a croûton and arrange these round a serving platter.  Lightly coat the surface of the tournedos with meat-glaze and surround them with a thread of Béarnaise sauce.

In the centre of the serving platter, arrange a heap of small potatoes cooked in butter and kept very soft and sprinkled with a pinch of chopped parsley.

Wine recommendations

A red wine with the fineness of Burgundy.

Conventional

     Bourgogne pinot noir

Interesting

     Mercurey

     Volnay

     Vosne-Romanée

Special

     Corton Grand Cru