No. 1593

Mutton Cutlets a la Bouchere

Cotelettes de Mouton a la Bouchere

Have a good fleshy rack of mutton with fine, tender pink meat; suppress the superficial skin covering the fat, and cut five cutlets from each rack; remove the spinal bone and round the tops; they should be thick and pared very little without handles, as they are not garnished with frills; salt over and dip them in melted butter, then roll in fine bread-crumbs. Eight or ten minutes before serving, range them on the broiler all on the same side, and when partially done and a fine color, turn them over to finish the cooking; when they are finished, dress in a circle garnishing the middle with the following: Cut four ounces of gherkins in small fillets like a small Julienne, (No. 318); four ounces of mushrooms, and four ounces of tongue, cut exactly the same as the gherkins; thicken this garnishing with a brown English sauce (No. 1571), finishing with a dash of cayenne pepper.

← No. 1592 Mutton Chops, Tavern Style Mutton No. 1594 Mutton Cutlets a la Macedoine →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's butcher's-style cutlets are a broiled crumbed chop with a sharp julienne garnish in the middle of the ring. Two things decide the result: how the rack is butchered and how hot the broiler is.

The meatA whole rack of mature mutton is a special-order item in most places; a rack of lamb behaves the same way and is what you will actually buy. Taking only five cutlets from a rack implies fairly thick chops, though Ranhofer specifies no measurement beyond "thick".
"Suppress the superficial skin"This is the fell, the papery membrane over the outer fat. Pull it off before cutting or it shrinks on the broiler and buckles the cutlets.
BonesThe spinal bone is the chine; have the butcher saw it off so the cutlets separate cleanly. "Rounding the tops" appears to mean shaping and trimming the top of each cutlet rather than frenching the bone, since Ranhofer specifies no handles and no frills.
Butter and crumbsMelted butter alone, no egg wash, gives a thin crust that colors fast. Use dry fine crumbs, press them on, and let the cutlets sit ten minutes so the coating sets.
Broiler heat and timingEight to ten minutes total under a hot broiler is right for a chop this thick cooked pink; the first side goes on until it is well colored, then it is turned once only. Judge by an internal reading of 130-135F rather than by the clock, and rest the cutlets five minutes.
The julienneNo. 318 is Ranhofer's julienne cut, a fine matchstick. Cut the gherkins (cornichons), cooked mushrooms and cooked tongue to the same size so the garnish reads as one thing.
The sauceThe "brown English sauce" called for at No. 1571 is not described on this page; from its use here it is evidently a brown sauce of the piquant type. A demi-glace let down with a little of the gherkin vinegar, then the cayenne, gives a comparable effect. It should coat the julienne, not pool.
TongueCured or pickled tongue is most probably what is meant in a garnish of this kind, though Ranhofer does not specify. Deli-sliced cured tongue cut into sticks works if you are not cooking one whole.
YieldTwo racks give ten cutlets. Ranhofer gives no serving count; ten will serve four or five generously today.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in numbered order. A la bouchere means butcher's style, a name attached in French kitchens to cuts served plainly and thickly — often said to be the way a butcher would keep them for himself — rather than trimmed into decorative handled cotelettes with frills. Ranhofer makes the point explicitly: no frills, pared very little. Mutton, the meat of a sheep over a year old and far more strongly flavored than lamb, was standard eating in nineteenth-century America and appears throughout this section; its near-total disappearance from English-language markets over the twentieth century is why a recipe like this now reads as more exotic than it was. The garnish of gherkin, tongue and mushroom cut to a uniform julienne and bound in a piquant brown sauce is a stock nineteenth-century combination for rich red meat, the acidity doing the work that a squeeze of lemon or a relish does now.