To Make the Mushroom Sauce.
Take a ladleful of stock, free from grease, from the stock-pot; add to it part of the juice from the can of mushrooms; thicken it with a little flour and butter mixed (roux); add pepper, salt, and a few drops of lemon-juice; now add the mushrooms—let them simmer a few minutes. Pour the sauce over the fillet of beef, and serve.
At small dinner companies, where the host carves, or has a good carver, the fillet can be served entire, decorated as elaborately as one wishes. If, however, the dinner is served from the side, it is convenient to have it carved as shown in cut on preceding page. The centre of the fillet is disengaged, then carved, and returned to its place. It has then the appearance of being whole.
To Garnish a Fillet of Beef.
As I have mentioned before, a fillet of beef is generally served with mushrooms; sometimes with different vegetables à la jardinière; sometimes with French pease; sometimes with potatoes cut into little round balls, and fried in boiling lard, called potatoes à la Parisienne on a French bill of fare; sometimes with stuffed tomatoes; sometimes skewers are put in stuck through a turnip carved into a cup, and this cup holds horse-radish. But some people say skewers remind them of steamboat cooking; then some people are not easily pleased, anyway; and who remembers of having seen so many skewers on steamboats, after all? Not that I am particularly advocating skewers, but I think dishes taste better, as a general thing, when they are decorated in almost any manner. I once saw at a dinner in Paris hot slices of roast or baked fillet of beef, tastefully arranged on a platter, with sauce Hollandaise (rather thick) poured over each slice in the form of a ring. It was a success.
The manner of garnishing a fillet of beef à la Godard and à la Provençale, etc., with truffles, quenelles, livers, olives, etc., all stewed with wines, stocks, etc., I will not explain. It is enough to make one groan to think of learning to make them, and more than ever to eat them.
To Roast a Fillet of Beef.
Lard it, and bind it carefully to the skewer with a small wire; cover the fillet with sweet salad-oil and a little lemon-juice. Do not place it too near the fire at first, as it would scorch the larding. Baste it frequently.