No. 1597

Mutton Cutlets a la Savary

Cotelettes de Mouton a la Savary

Obtain a rack of mutton of tender meat, take off all the skin, shorten the rib bones and cut the rack into even thick cutlets. (The cutlets are to be cut more or less thick according to the thickness of the meat.) Suppress the hard skin covering the fillets, round the meat neatly cutting the tops into a point, and remove all superfluous fat. Make a handle to the cutlets by removing the fat from about one inch of the end and scraping the bone clean. Macerate these cutlets in a cooked marinade (No. 114), drain, wipe dry and fry them in clarified butter; pour off the fat and moisten with meat glaze (No. 402) and Madeira, roll the cutlets in this to glaze them, then dress them in a circle; garnish the handles with frills and fill in the center with a puree of Jerusalem artichokes (No. 704). Serve separately a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) with lemon-juice added and surround with one inch potato balls cooked in the oven with clarified butter, drained, salted, and dressed.

← No. 1596 Mutton Cutlets a la Nelson Mutton No. 1598 Mutton Cutlets Breaded, English Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stockpot always going, so most of the work here is in the cross-references. Sort those out first and the cooking itself is quick.

Mutton versus lambTrue mutton is sheep over two years old, strongly flavoured and firmer; almost nothing sold in American supermarkets qualifies. A rack of lamb behaves the same way in this preparation but is milder and cooks faster, so treat the marinade as seasoning rather than tenderising.
The cutlets themselvesWhat Ranhofer describes is a French-trimmed rack cut into chops, each with the bone scraped bare for an inch or so. Any butcher will french a rack on request. Cut them one rib thick, roughly 3/4 to 1 inch, or double-rib if the meat is thin; Ranhofer only says to cut them more or less thick according to the thickness of the meat.
Cooked marinade (No. 114)A marinade cuite: wine and vinegar simmered with aromatic vegetables and herbs, then cooled completely before the meat goes in. Ranhofer's exact proportions are in No. 114, which is not on this page. It must be cold or it will start to cook the surface. A few hours is enough for lamb.
Meat glaze and half-glazeNo. 402 is glace de viande, brown stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold; a tablespoon or two of reduced demi-glace or a good commercial glace works. No. 413 is demi-glace, the sauce served alongside. These are two different consistencies doing two different jobs, one to coat and one to pour.
The hinge: glaze off the heatThe hinge: pour off the fat first -- Ranhofer says to pour away the frying butter before adding the glaze and Madeira, then roll the cutlets in it to glaze them. He does not say to take the pan off the heat, but keep the bubbling brief: butter left behind will slacken the glaze into a greasy film instead of a shine, and prolonged bubbling overcooks the chops.
DonenessFry in clarified butter over fairly brisk heat, about 3 to 4 minutes a side for a 1-inch chop, to 130-135F for medium rare. Rest them while you finish the sauce; the glazing step should take under a minute.
Potato balls and artichoke pureeScoop the potatoes with a melon baller and roast in clarified butter; the recipe gives no temperature, but a hot oven, around 400F for 20-25 minutes turning once, suits one-inch balls. Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes) are peeled, simmered in salted water or milk until soft, then pureed with butter and cream and dried out over low heat so the puree holds its shape in the center of the ring.
Frills and yieldThe paper frills on the bone handles are decorative and optional. A rack yields seven or eight cutlets, enough for two or three people at three chops each.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how the book actually worked: a short paragraph of instruction stitched to a web of numbered preparations that the kitchen already had standing. Mutton had a real place on nineteenth-century American menus, more assertive than lamb and cheap enough to be everyday, though grand restaurants dressed it up with Madeira, glaze and frilled bones. The Savary name is not explained by Ranhofer and, like many of his garnish titles, it most likely honours a person now unidentifiable; what does the work is the Jerusalem artichoke puree, a vegetable that fell steeply out of American fashion in the twentieth century and has only lately returned under the name sunchoke.