No. 1529

Calf's Light a la Mariniere

Mou de Veau a la Mariniere

Fry one pound of small squares of bacon in butter, add a calf's light cut into two inch pieces and marinated for eight hours previously in salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaf, white wine, sweet oil, minced onions, slices of lemon, garlic and parsley leaves. After the light is well fried, dredge over with some flour, toss well, then moisten with white wine and stock (No. 194a), half an hour before serving, add small onions fried in clarified butter; and a little sugar, and ten minutes before sending to the table, put in some mushrooms; finish cooking the whole, dress and garnish with croutons of bread fried in butter, laid all around the stew.

← No. 1528 Leg or Haunch of Veal, a la Miribel Veal No. 1530 Calf's Liver a la Clermont →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's stew of calf's lung ("lights") is a classic marinière-style braise, but the main ingredient is the obstacle: lung is prohibited from sale for human food in the United States, and elsewhere it is a special-order item from a butcher.

What a "light" isCalf's light is the lung, named for how buoyant and airy it is. It is spongy rather than muscular, absorbs liquid readily, and cooks to a soft, slightly chewy texture unlike any other offal.
SourcingUSDA regulations bar lung from meat sold for human consumption in the US, so it will not be available from an American butcher. In the UK and much of Europe it is legal and can be ordered, though usually as part of a pluck. Cooks who cannot get it sometimes build the same braise on heart or cheek, which behave quite differently but take the marinade well.
The marinadeThe eight hours in wine, oil, aromatics and lemon does more than season; it is generally held to temper the faint metallic edge lung carries. Marinate covered in the refrigerator, and pat the pieces dry before frying or they will steam instead of brown.
Blanching firstFrench practice often blanches lights in salted water and drains them before marinating, which purges blood and shrinks the sponge so it does not swell in the pan. Ranhofer does not call for it here, but it is worth doing.
"Sweet oil"Plain olive oil, mild rather than peppery. In period usage the phrase distinguished it from lamp oil or rancid oil, not from any modern grade.
Stock No. 194aRanhofer's cross-reference is to his own kitchen stock. A light brown veal or chicken stock is the right substitute; avoid anything heavily reduced, since the flour dredge will thicken the sauce on its own.
The little onions and sugarSmall onions fried in clarified butter with a pinch of sugar are being glazed, not sweetened. Add them for the final half hour so they take up sauce without collapsing.
TimingThe staged additions matter: onions at thirty minutes out, mushrooms at ten. Mushrooms added early will give up their water and dilute the braise.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield; a calf's lung with a pound of bacon would serve roughly six to eight as a main course. The fried croutons should be cut and fried at the last moment.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete professional reference, and its comprehensiveness is why entries like this one survive. À la marinière normally signals a white wine treatment with small onions — the term is most familiar from mussels — and here it dresses up an inexpensive ingredient. Lights were standard butcher's fare across Europe: they appear in Austrian Beuschel, in French fricassée de mou, and in the Scottish haggis. Ranhofer includes it because a book meant to cover the whole of the trade had to account for the whole animal.