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Pepper and Salt (Cutlets must first be cut)
The cutlets must first be cut, a bone to each cutlet, and not very much trimmed, then braized for an hour (in the oven is best) till the meat is quite tender; take them out and press them until cold, when each cutlet should be very neatly trimmed, and dipped in the glaze until they have a smooth glacé appearance. Next chop the aspic, cutting from it first a few croûtons to arrange round the cutlets. Put the chopped aspic on the dish, arrange the cutlets, and fill in the centre with the macédoine, which should previously be well stirred into the Mayonnaise sauce, leaving the beetroot to add at the last, as it discolours the other vegetables. This entrée can be varied or ornamented, according to taste, with cut cucumber, small frills, etc. Cutlets à l'Epicurienne.
Ingredients.
Best end of a neck of Mutton.
This is a cold entrée in the late-Victorian service style: cutlets braised, pressed, glazed and set off with chopped aspic and a vegetable salad. The text assumes you already have meat glaze, aspic and mayonnaise on hand, which is where most of the work actually lies.
- The hinge: press while warm, trim when coldThe cutlets must be weighted flat as soon as they leave the braising pan and left until completely cold, so the collagen sets and holds the shape. Only then will trimming give the clean outline the glaze needs; trim first and warm meat will bulge and shred.
- Best end of neck of muttonThis is the rack — the rib section behind the shoulder. Mature mutton is rare in most markets; a rack of lamb is the usual substitution, giving roughly six to eight cutlets depending on how it is butchered, though it is milder and will not need the full hour. Braise until a knife meets no resistance rather than by the clock.
- "Braized in the oven"A covered pan with stock or braising liquid barely to the depth of the meat. The book gives no temperature; a moderate oven, in modern terms somewhere around 300–325F, suits the method. The original hour suits tough mutton; lamb is often tender in less.
- GlazeNot a sugar glaze. This is glace de viande — brown stock reduced until it coats a spoon and sets firm when cold. Warm it to just liquid and dip the cold cutlets; a hot glaze melts the surface fat and goes streaky.
- AspicClarified savoury jelly, set firm in a shallow tray, then chopped with a wet knife for the bed and cut into neat croûtons (small geometric shapes) for the border. Modern practice is a well-clarified stock set with gelatine, roughly 1½ to 2 teaspoons powdered gelatine per cup for a jelly firm enough to chop.
- MacédoineA dice of cooked mixed vegetables — traditionally carrot, turnip, peas, green beans — cut small and even. Fold into mayonnaise just before serving so the vegetables do not weep.
- The beetroot warning is realBetalain pigment bleeds instantly into mayonnaise and pale vegetables. Add cooked diced beetroot at the moment of dishing, or scatter it on top rather than stirring it through.
- Serving and keepingAllow one cutlet per person, two for a light main course; the recipe itself gives no yield. Everything is served cold: assemble on a chilled dish, keep refrigerated, and return it to room temperature only briefly before it goes to table, since the aspic and mayonnaise both suffer.
- "Small frills"Paper cutlet frills fitted over the exposed rib bone. Purely decorative, and still sold for racks of lamb.
The dish belongs to the cold buffet repertoire that Anglo-French cookery inherited from Carême and codified through Escoffier's generation: meat cooked, pressed, coated in glaze or chaud-froid, and presented on jelly with a salad garnish. Titles ending à l'Épicurienne were not fixed formulas, and the name is often read as a claim of refinement — the epicure's version — though the same name attaches to quite different preparations across nineteenth-century cookbooks. What dates the recipe is the labour behind the three components it does not bother to explain: meat glaze from reduced stock, clarified aspic, and hand-whisked mayonnaise. The instruction that beetroot must go in last reads like the sort of detail that comes from having watched a mayonnaise turn pink on a sideboard, though that is only a guess.