Epigram
"I have been dining," said a French nobleman to one of those wealthy but often ignorant tax-farmers who used to be called financiers in France-" I have been dining with a poet who regaled us at dessert with a choice epigram." The financier went home to his cook, and asked him, "How comes it that you never send any epigrams to my table?" The next day the cook sent to table an Epigram of Lamb. -Poetical epigrams are generally written in alternate verse ; and epigrams of lamb consist of alternate cutlets. One set of cutlets are of the ordinary kind, cut from the neck, and fried plain in clarified butter: the other kind are made out of the breast of lamb, which is brazed, boned, pressed between two dishes, and when cold carved into cutlet shapes, with a bit of bone stuck into each at one end to complete the likeness. These cutlets Essence are breadcrumbed before they are fried. To serve them, pile in the centre of the dish a garnish of asparagus points, of peas, or of Macedon; arrange round it alternately the plain cutlets and the breadcrumbed ones, and let them be convoyed to table by a boatful of Béchamel.
Epigram of Fowl. - Here the fillets of fowl supply the place of the plain cutlets; the legs, boned and brazed, are made into breadcrumbed ones, and the sauce is Supreme, with the same garnish as for lamb; or else the Toulouse relish supplies the place of garnish and sauce.
Kettner gives the idea rather than a working method, so the quantities and times are yours to supply. The essential structure is two contrasting cutlets on one dish: plain fried neck chops and breaded medallions cut from cold braised breast.
- "Brazed" is braisedThe breast of lamb is browned, then cooked covered in a little stock until the bones pull free. Kettner gives no times or temperatures. It needs to be cooked well in advance, since the recipe calls for it to be pressed and carved cold.
- Pressed between two dishesBone the hot breast, lay it flat between two plates or trays with a weight on top, and refrigerate overnight. Without real weight the meat stays loose and the cut shapes fall apart in the pan.
- MacedonAn anglicised macédoine: a mixture of vegetables cut in small even dice, usually carrot, turnip, green beans and peas, cooked separately and combined. Not a single ingredient you can buy.
- Clarified butterSpecified because whole butter burns at frying heat. Clarified butter or ghee holds to about 400F; medium-high heat is right for the plain cutlets, moderate for the breaded ones so the crumbs colour without scorching.
- The cutlets are already cookedThe breast medallions need only to be crumbed and fried until golden and heated through, three or four minutes a side. Treating them like raw chops overcooks them into leather.
- Neck cutletsAsk for lamb neck chops or use rib chops from the rack, cut about ¾ inch thick, and cook to medium-rare or medium — five to seven minutes total. The bone stuck into the breast medallions is pure decoration and can be left off.
- The saucesBéchamel here means the old-style rich version, milk or cream thickened with white roux and simmered with onion, bay and nutmeg, then strained. Suprême for the fowl is a velouté of chicken stock finished with cream. A boat means a sauceboat served alongside, not poured over the fried crust.
- Toulouse garnishHistorically a ragoût of sweetbreads, cockscombs, kidneys and button mushrooms in suprême sauce. Cockscombs are effectively unobtainable; sweetbreads, mushrooms and small quenelles give the same effect.
- YieldOne breast of lamb yields roughly six to eight medallions; pair with the same number of small chops for four servings.
The anecdote about the financier and the poet's epigram was already a stock joke among nineteenth-century food writers, circulating in several sources without a secure first teller, and it is best read as a traditional tale rather than documented history. What is real is the technique: épigrammes d'agneau was a standing item of French service well before Kettner's Book of the Table appeared in 1877, and it exists for a thrifty reason. The breast is a fatty, bony, slow-cooking cut that no one would put beside a neat fried chop; braising, boning, pressing and crumbing it turns the cheapest part of the animal into something that looks and eats like the dearest, and sets it on the same plate for contrast. The alternating arrangement \ inged round a mound of green vegetables — one crisp, one plain — is pure high-Victorian dining-room theatre, the kind of dish designed to be carried in whole and admired before it was carved into.