Tournedos à la Rossini

[TallFatSue]

I love classical music, and I just stumbled across these delicious little items. My head spins just reading about Tournedos à la Rossini! Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini (The Barber of Seville, William Tell etc.) retired to Paris where he indulged his love of gourmet cuisine for the rest of his life. He lived from 1792 to 1868, a total of 76 years, so that fine dining must have been verrrry good for him. Just the sort of diet I can handle. :eat2:

Opera Italiana: Rossini Gastronomy 1
http://www.operaitaliana.com/autori/curiosita.asp?ID=2&Cur=10

Apart from his particular preferences for this or that dish, the Maestro [Rossini] was undoubtedly a gourmet.

"Next to doing nothing I can think of no more delightful pastime than eating, eating properly I mean. Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart. The stomach is the maestro di cappella that controls and directs the grand orchestra of the passions. An empty stomach is like the bassoon or the piccolo grumbling unhappily or squeaking with envy; on the other hand a full stomach is the triangle of pleasure or the cymbals of joy. As for love, I consider it the real prima donna, a star singing cavatinas in one's mind so that the ear is intoxicated and the heart enchanted. Eating and loving, singing and digesting: these are in truth the four acts of this comic opera that we call life and that fades away like the bubbles in a bottle of champagne. Anyone who lets it pass him by without having enjoyed it is a fool."

Opera Italiana: Rossini Gastronomy 2
http://www.operaitaliana.com/autori/curiosita.asp?ID=2&Cur=11

Another of the Maestro's specialities is the famous Tournedos à la Rossini. At the time it was said that the name of the dish was due to the fact that the composer's butler was obliged to "tourner le dos" [turn his back] on the diners so as to hide the secret of the final touches of this recipe created by the famous chef Marie-Antoine Carême (who loved to define himself a pastry architect) with Rossini's complicity and supervision.

Here is the well-known recipe (for four persons):

Four 150g tournedos of filet steak each 3cm thick, four slices of bread, 150g of butter, a glass of Madeira, a spoonful of flour, a glass of stock, 1 decilitre of demi-glace sauce, four round shapes of foie gras, floured and sautéed in butter, four slices of Norcia truffle cut quite thick, salt and pepper.

Tie the tournedos so that they keep their shape in cooking. Cut the slices of bread to the same size as the tournedos and brown them lightly in a little butter in a pan. Place the tournedos on the butter and cook over a high flame on both sides for about three minutes.

Then add salt and pepper, remove from the pan and place on a warm serving dish or keep them warm in a bain-marie. Blend the last piece of butter with the flour and put the mixture into the sauce; then dilute it with the boiling stock, pour in the Madeira and mix it with the cooking sauce. Add the demi-glace and cook over a low flame, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens.

Then place the tournedos on the bread and decorate with round slices of foie gras (which should be slightly smaller than the tournedos and which have been braised in the same pan on a very hot flame for fifteen seconds each side). Cut twelve discs of truffle and place three on each tournedos.

Pour over the sauce, add the rest of the chopped truffles and serve immediately.

Has anyone ever tried Tournedos à la Rossini? I just gotta have some, one of these days.

 

[Fuzzy]

 

[liz (di-va)]

 

[SoVerySoft]