No. 1596

Mutton Cutlets a la Nelson

Cotelettes de Mouton a la Nelson

Chop up separately and thoroughly some cooked ham and truffles. Pare a few cutlets, season and dip them in beaten eggs, cover one of their sides with the ham and the other with the truffles, dredging bread-crumbs on both sides, dip them again in the eggs, roll them in the bread-crumbs, and range them in a sautoir with clarified butter; fry over a very brisk fire; when cooked, drain, wipe, garnish the handles with paper frills (No. 10), and dress them in a circle. Pour a little Victoria sauce (No. 557) into the center of the crown and serve more of it in a sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A double-breaded chop from Ranhofer's Delmonico kitchen, built on one trick: each side of the cutlet carries a different filling under the crumbs. Everything else is knife work and heat control.

The hinge: two coats, two fillingsThe first egg wash is glue for the ham on one face and the truffle on the other; the crumbs, second egg dip and second crumbing seal that layer in. If the mince is damp or piled thick it will slide out in the pan, so chop it fine, press it firm, and chill the breaded cutlets 20-30 minutes before frying.
Mutton cutletsThese are rib chops from the rack, frenched so the bone is clean enough to take a frill. True mutton is scarce in most markets; lamb rib chops about 3/4 inch thick behave the same way and are milder. Pound them lightly to an even thickness so the crumb crust and the interior finish together.
SautoirA straight-sided saute pan, not a sloped skillet. Use one wide enough to hold the cutlets without touching, or fry in batches; crowding steams the crust off.
"A very brisk fire"High heat. Clarified butter tolerates far more heat than whole butter, which would burn and blacken the crumbs; that is why the original specifies clarified. The book gives no temperature. Figure 3-4 minutes a side for a 3/4-inch chop, to about 130-135F internal for pink lamb.
TrufflesTruffles were a routine luxury in the Delmonico's kitchen; the recipe does not say whether fresh or preserved is meant, and Ranhofer's book uses both. Preserved or jarred truffle works here because it is buried under crumbs; truffle oil is a modern product and is not a substitute.
Victoria sauce (No. 557)A separate cross-reference in the same book, so consult it rather than guessing; its composition is not given here. If you are not making the book's version, a rich brown sauce of the demi-glace family finished with wine sits in roughly the same register.
Paper frills and the crownFrills (No. 10) are cut paper cuffs slipped over the bared rib bones, purely decorative and traditionally added after frying so they stay clean. Standing the cutlets in a circle, bones out, leaves a well in the middle for the sauce; sauce the plate, never the crust, or the breading softens on the way to the table.
YieldTwo rib chops per person as a course. The recipe's "a few cutlets" assumes a service kitchen scaling to the order.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it reads like a working kitchen's index: numbered preparations that constantly refer to one another, as this one does to a paper frill and a sauce filed elsewhere. Dishes styled a la Nelson appear in nineteenth-century French cookery and are commonly said to honour Admiral Horatio Nelson, but the link between the man and any given ham-and-truffle cutlet is honorific rather than documented. The technique itself is older and more useful than the name: breading a chop twice, with a stuffing hidden between the coats, gave a plain rib chop the appearance of something composed, and it is the same logic behind the a la Marechale cutlets that sit immediately before it in the book.