Steaks in France

French menus will generally list the type of steak in the dish description. The principal exception being steak frites, which is often made with a cheap cut of steak such as a thin slice of meat from the rump of the steer. In some restaurants, the weight of the steak is also listed on the menu. The common sizes being 100 grams, 150 grams, and 200 grams. There’re no Texas-size steaks in France, and steaks are rarely served on the bone.

When you order a steak in a French restaurant it will usually be served with a sauce and maybe a garnish. The actual combination will be indicated by the name of the dish. Possibly the most common is entrecôte béarnaise. Nowadays the list of steak dishes is relatively short, but a hundred years ago Saulnier listed 177 different steaks dishes that were prepared with just a filet.4 He listed many more for the other cuts. Some examples are quoted below:

• Tournedo niçoise: cook in butter, niçoise garnish, serve with thickened tomato gravy. A niçoise garnish for meat consists of diced fried tomatoes, garlic, green beans, and potatoes. Niçoise means of or pertaining to Nice, France.
• Tournedo Saint-Gothard: grilled, dress on croûtons, set on half a grilled tomato filled with béarnaise sauce, surround with souffle potatoes.
• Tournedo italienne: cooked in butter, garnish with quarters of artichoke bottoms cooked à l’italienne, served with italienne sauce. Italienne sauce is mayonnaise with lemon juice and parsley.
• Tournedo castillane: cooked in butter, dressed on croûtons, garnished with tartlet crusts filled with dice of tomatoes surrounded with fried rounds of onions.
• Tournedo Vatel: cook in butter, dress on pommes Anna, border with green pea puree, garnish center with diced tomatoes, sprinkle with chopped tarragon, surround with sauteed cèpes and braised chicory, white-wine demi-glace sauce.

Also see Big Beef Steak List (.pdf)

It was common in those days to serve a steak resting on a slice of crustless bread that had been fried in clarified butter and referred to as a croûton. The bread absorbed juices exuded by the cooked steak so they didn’t run around the plate and spoil the appearance of the presentation. Truffles and foie gras were also commonly part of the presentation. As archaic as some of the presentations seem today, some are still used. It’s not particularly difficult to find some variation of a tournedo Rossini—a pan-fried filet served on a crouton, garnished with a slice of seared foie gras on top, and surrounded by a ring of Madiera-flavored demi-glace—on a modern menu.

Steak recipes can nowadays be divided roughly into five groups.

• Steaks served essentially plain, seasoned with just salt and pepper. An example is onglet le Mauzac, a plain steak served with a simple lemon wedge and named after the small café where it is served.
• Steaks served essentially plain, seasoned with just salt and pepper and accompanied by a sauce. Entrecôte au sauce piquante is an example from the early nineteenth century whereas entrecôte vigneronne may be considered traditional but was obtained from a modern source. Pavés du Mail is also a modern example served with a traditional sauce.
• Steaks heavily seasoned with strong spices before cooking, usually accompanied by a sauce. Steak au poivre is probably the most common example of this group of recipes. It has many variations of which a more modern, upscale version is le bifteck aphrodisiaque, the properties of which I cannot attest to.
• Steaks served with a chopped or sliced vegetable topping that also acts as a sauce. The most common example of this group is onglet aux échalotes, but steak provençale and steak Joseph are also worthwhile versions; the latter of which gets its name from the restaurant where is was served in the 1950s.
• Steaks heavily garnished with vegetables or other meats, usually accompanied by a sauce. Tournedos cendrillon is a classic example from a hundred years ago. Tournedos à la Chartres was published only a half century ago, but is as over the top as most earlier recipes of this group. A simpler, more modern example entrecôtes au wasabi, wok de légumes asiatique was published in 2006.

Although some of the recipes for steaks haven’t changed over time, the steak itself has. Nowadays steers are bred and raised to improve their tenderness. Some books from a century ago even called for cuts from the tenderloin, the most tender part of the steer, to be larded with slivers of pork fat. Some of these books are still in print.