Parks Canada Heritage Gourmet Recipes

Beef Rump à la Cardinale

Serve this meat dish cold and sliced for a summer dinner.

Origin: Forges du Saint-Maurice National Historic Site
Region: Quebec
Period: 18^th Century
Course: Main Course

The Forges-du-Saint-Maurice produced many different items out of cast iron, such as the cooking pots used by women in the kitchens. Beef, as well as pork, were meats that were provided to the workers and their families by the company that ran the Forges. Beef Rump à la Cardinale is certainly the type of dish that women of this New France industrial village could have prepared. The ingredients were available – and the cooking pots too.

Beef Rump à la Cardinale

Ingredients:

• Marinade
  • ½ lb | 225 g salt pork, cut into lardoons
  • 1 tsp | 5 ml mixed spices
  • 1 tsp | 5 ml salt
  • 1 10-12 lb | 5 kg rump roast of beef (today's sirloin and part of the hind quarters)
  • 1 oz | 30 g juniper berries, ground
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp | 5 ml each thyme and basil
  • ⅔ lb | 300 g coarse salt
  
  
• Cooking
  • A few strips of pork fat (for barding)
  • 6 cups | 1.5 litres red wine
  • 4 cups | 1 litre water
  • 5-6 onions; 2 cloves garlic; 4-5 carrots; 2 parsnips
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp | 5 ml each basil and thyme
  • 4-5 cloves
  • ¼ tsp | 1 ml nutmeg
  • 3-4 tbsp | 45-60 ml fresh parsley
  • 2 tbsp | 30 ml fresh chives

Directions:

• Marinade
  • Rub the lardoons with the mixed spices and salt; lard the beef. Place the roast in a large earthenware pot with the juniper berries, bay leaves, thyme, basil and salt. Cover and marinate 24 hours.
  
  
• Cooking
  • Remove beef from the pot and wash with hot water. Bard (cover with the strips of pork fat), wrap in cheesecloth and tie. Bake at very low heat for 5 hours with the red wine, water, onions, garlic, carrots, parsnips, bay leaf, basil, thyme, cloves, nutmeg, parsley and chives.
  • Remove from the heat and let cool in the cooking juices. Keep cool until serving time. Serve cold and sliced.

Credits:

Recipe tested by Chef Scott Warrick, Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism

This recipe is adapted from the book A Taste of History: The Origins of Quebec's Gastronomy. Yvon Desloges and Marc Lafrance. Éditions de la Chenelière. Montréal 1989. English-French book. ISBN : 2-89310-028-7. The authors found the original recipe in La Cuisinière bourgeoise, by Menon, which dates to 1772.