Tournedos Rossini is a classical French recipe with credit for its creation given to the Italian composer of operas, the most famous of which is the Barber of Seville, although actual origin of the dish remains in some dispute. A recipe very much like it is recorded in the writings of culinary giant Georges Auguste Escoffier without the Rossini reference.
But like many things in the world of food lore and legend, popular conception may have little to do with historical fact. In this case, whether Rossini made the dish famous or not isn't as relevant as the commonly accepted practice of serving key ingredients whenever a dish is so named: a fillet of beef, pan-fried in butter, served on a crouton, and topped with a slice of whole foie gras. The dish is garnished with slices of black truffle, and finished with a Madeira demi-glace.
Given the prices of prime beef, foie gras and truffles, this dish will cost you a pretty penny if you can even get the ingredients, or if any restaurant were to carry it on the menu. Most likely, it would be carried as a Chef's special in an upscale steak house if at all, but unlikely to be carried on a menu due to the expense and parishability of the ingredients.By the way, "tournedos" is just another fancy French culinary term generally referring to a 3-4 ounce slice of beef tenderloin. The French Dictionary of the Academy of Gastronomes gives one account for the origin of the name, which first made its appearance in the mid-1800s:
"In the last century, the stalls backing onto (tournant les dos) the central alleys of the fresh fish pavilion, in the Paris Halles [markets], were assigned fish of doubtful freshness. By analogy, the name tournedos was given to pieces of filet of beef that were kept for a few days in storage. An indiscretion is said to have led to the word’s appearing on a restaurant menu one day; the public, not knowing its origin, adopted it."
Tournedos Rossini gave me the idea for my recipe, and since I didn't have any foie gras or truffles lying around, I improvised with a Duxelles and Gorgonzola cheese. Ha! What is a Duxelles, you ask? Just another fancy French cooking term that merely means a minced mixture of mushrooms, shallots and herbs, sauteed in butter, and reduced to a paste.
As with several recipes of late, I am using store-bought Bordelaise and Madeira sauces from Williams-Sonoma. Below, you will find recipes for both of these sauces if you care to make them on your own, but for my money, the products sold by Williams-Sonoma are fantastic, made without preservatives and utterly delicious. They're damn expensive, too, which is a testament to their being hand-crafted in small batches. Although several "finishing sauces" are available on the Williams-Sonoma website, neither the Bordelaise nor the Madeira sauces are. I suspect this has something to do with their perishability and shelf-life.
Finally, we come to the stuffed zucchini. I felt like the richness of the beef, the Duxelles and Gorgonzola cheese needed something light and a little "tomatoey" to offset the heaviness of the entree. I had forgotten that this dish was one of my favorite Frugal Gourmet Jeff Smith recipes from his second cookbook The Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine, published in 1986. I made it many times in the 80's and early 90's because it is elegant and looks complicated. It isn't. It's very simple and a lot of fun to serve. It will always get rave reviews! I have made a couple of modifications in Smith's original recipe, however, including the addition of shredded Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs incorporated into the mixture as binding agents for the stuffing.
Ingredients for the Tornedos
2 6-8 oz beef tenderloin fillets, sliced into thirds, so you have six slices of equal thickness
1 loaf of crusty French or Italian bread
1 & 1/2 sticks butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp garlic, minced
2 medium shallots, minced
6 oz Crimini mushrooms, very finely diced
3 tbsp dried parsley, or 6 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
6 tbsp port wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp Bordelaise sauce (like, Williams-Sonoma, or use recipe below)
2 tbsp A-1 Steak Sauce
1 tsp ground thyme
dash paprika
salt & pepper to taste
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp grated Parmesan Cheese (like, the Kraft green can)
3 oz Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Ingredients
For the stuffed zucchini
3-4 zucchini, the fatter, the better
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 small yellow onion, finely minced
2 medium ripe tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 tsp dried dill weed
1/2 packet Splenda
4-6 tbsp dry red wine
1/4 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese, freshly grated or shredded
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs (like, Old London or Progresso)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (the Kraft green can)
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup dry white wine
The Recipes
First, start the Duxelles:
Put 1/2 stick of butter and 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan over medium high heat and bring to the smoking point. Saute the garlic and shallots first. Add a second 1/2 stick of butter to the pan, then add and saute the mushrooms. Stirring frequently, bring all the ingredients to a browned, caramelized state, about thirty minutes.
De-glaze the pan with the port wine and allow the alcohol to burn off. Add the lemon juice, Bordelaise and A-1 sauces, with the thyme, parsley, paprika, salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium and stirring frequently, simmer the liquid away until you have a thick, chunky, pasty concoction, about another thirty minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the beef and bread:
While the Duxelle is in preparation, and after slicing the fillet into the six tournedos, use a meat mallet to lightly - and I do mean lightly - pound out the fillet on both sides to make the meat roughly the same circumference as the bread. Don't "pancake" the meat. You just want to slightly flatten it and add a little extra tenderness to an already tender cut of beef.
Equally slice the French or Italian bread into rounds roughly the same thickness as the tournedos. Cover the tournedos with wax paper, but allow to sit out on the counter and come to room temperature. Spread the remaining 1/2 stick of butter over the tops of the bread slices, and sprinkle on the garlic powder and grated Parmesan cheese (yes, the Kraft green can).
While the Duxelle is reducing, prepare the zucchini:
Cut the ends from the zucchini and depending on their length, slice them crosswise in half or into thirds. Using a melon-baller, scoop out most of the pulp from one end. Leave the other end of the zucchini intact so that you have a small round tube of squash that is sealed at the other side. Discard the pulp and set the zucchini cups aside.
Heat a frying pan over medium high heat with the olive oil. When it begins to shimmer, add the garlic and onion. Saute until the onion is clear, about five minutes. Add the tomatoes, red wine, dill weed, Splenda, salt and pepper and saute until the tomatoes are limp, but not mushy, another five to ten minutes.
Add the shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese to the pan and stirring to prevent burning and sticking, allow it to melt into the mixture. This will only take a couple of minutes.
Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.
Remove the pan from the heat and add the bread crumbs. Stir to combine and your stuffing should be thick, clumped together with no running juices.
Stuff each of the zucchini cups with the stuffing mixture and top off each with a good amount of the grated Parmesan cheese (yes, the Kraft green can, again).
Stand the zucchini cups up on a baking dish just large enough to hold them (a glass pie pan works well for this), then pour the white wine around the bottoms of the squash.
Bake them uncovered in a 400 degree oven for 40-45 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly.
Finally, saute the beef and finish the dish:
After the Duxelle has finished reducing, and just before the zucchini cups will be ready to come out of the oven, heat a saute pan over medium high heat and melt the remaining butter. Allow the butter to sizzle and pop a couple of minutes so some of its moisture content is steamed away. Saute the beef slices in the hot butter over medium high heat for two minutes on each side until they lose their redness and slightly brown a bit. Do not overcook. Remove them to paper towels.
With the oven broiler on high, place the bread slices about six inches from the heat and toast quickly until the butter is melted and the cheese is bubbly and browned.
Remove the bread slices from the oven. Slather on a thick portion of the Duxelle, then lay the tournedo on top of that. Finally, top with 1/2 ounce of the Gorgonzola cheese. Repeat this with the remaining five tornedos.
On a cookie sheet, place the assembled tournedos stacks under the broiler and allow the Gorgonzola cheese to become bubbly and browned. In the mean time, warm up your Madeira sauce in the microwave.
Present the tournedos with some of the Madeira wine sauce on and around the stack, with one or two of the stuffed zucchini cups on the plate. You now have an elegant, special dinner, inspired by a Gourmand opera composer and a Gourmet TV chef, both of whom lived 100 years apart.
And if you want to make your own Bordelaise sauce:
Saute a finely diced shallot in two tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until slightly caramelized. Stir in 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour and allow it to thoroughly combine with the shallots and butter, and cook a bit until slightly browned. Add 1/4 teaspoon of ground thyme, salt & pepper to taste. Whisk in one cup of dry red wine and de-glaze the pan, scraping up the crusty brown bits. Whisk until all is well blended and the sauce begins to thicken. Pour in one cup of beef stock (like, Kitchen Basics or Swanson's), raise the heat to medium high, and reduce in half, stirring frequently, until you have one cup. Stir in two tablespoons of Veal Demi-Glace (available at Williams-Sonoma; click here to see it). Strain out the shallots or use an immersion blender so the sauce is smooth, then whisk in four tablespoons of butter. The sauce is now ready to use.
And if you want to make your own Madeira wine sauce:
Saute a finely diced shallot in two tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until slightly caramelized. Stir in 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour and allow it to thoroughly combine with the shallots and butter, and cook a bit until slightly browned. Whisk in one cup of Madeira wine and de-glaze the pan, scraping up the crusty brown bits. Whisk until all is well blended and the sauce begins to thicken. Add salt & pepper to taste. Pour in one cup of beef stock (like, Kitchen Basics or Swanson's), raise the heat to medium high, and reduce in half, stirring frequently, until you have one cup. Stir in two tablespoons of Veal Demi-Glace (available at Williams-Sonoma). Strain out the shallots or use an immersion blender so the sauce is smooth, then whisk in four tablespoons of butter. The sauce is now ready to use.
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