No. 1598

Mutton Cutlets Breaded, English Sauce

Cotelettes de Mouton Panees, Sauce Anglaise

Season some well pared cutlets, dip them in melted butter, roll in fine white bread-crumbs, and lay them on the broiler to cook while turning them over--about eight minutes will suffice--when done, of a fine color on both sides, dress and decorate with paper frills (No. 10); serve at the same time a brown English sauce (No. 1571) either separately or underneath the cutlets.

← No. 1597 Mutton Cutlets a la Savary Mutton No. 1599 Mutton Cutlets Breaded with Puree of Truffle →

For the Modern Kitchen

A short entry from Ranhofer's cross-referenced system, which assumes you already have the sauce and the trimmed rack in hand. Two things need translating: what "broiler" meant in 1894, and what "English sauce" means in a meat chapter.

The cutlets"Well pared" cutlets are rib chops cut from a rack of mutton or lamb, the bone scraped clean (frenched) and the fat and flap trimmed back to a neat round of meat. Ask for a rack cut into single ribs; figure two or three per person.
Broiler means a gridironIn 1894 the broiler was a grid set over the fire, so the heat came from below and the crumbs browned as the fat dripped away. A modern overhead broiler scorches the crumbs before the centre is warm; a grill or a heavy ridged pan over medium heat is closer to the original behaviour.
Eight minutesEight minutes total suits a fairly thin chop; the recipe's own test is a fine colour on both sides, and it has you turning them as they cook. Thicker chops will need longer.
Butter and crumbsMelted butter alone holds the crumbs, with no egg wash, so the coating is thin and fragile. Use dry, finely sifted white crumbs, press them on firmly, and let the breaded chops rest ten minutes before they meet the heat so the butter sets.
"Sauce Anglaise" is not custardRanhofer's No. 1571 is described in this recipe as a brown English sauce for meat, not the vanilla custard the same name carries in pastry work. Any good brown sauce will serve the same purpose here.
Paper frillsNo. 10 is the book's cross-reference for the paper cuffs fitted to the bared rib bones. They are purely decorative; omitting them costs nothing but the period look.
ServingThe original gives no yield. As a course in a longer meal, allow two chops each; as a main dish, three, with the sauce spooned under rather than over so the crumb crust stays crisp.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of what is generally given as some thirty years associated with Delmonico's in New York, and the mutton section shows how many variations a large restaurant kitchen kept ready on a single cut: the numbers on either side of this one give the same cutlet Savary style and with truffle puree. Breading and grilling was one common treatment for a trimmed rib chop in nineteenth-century French practice, and the sauce is called anglaise, though the reason for the name is uncertain. Mutton itself was ordinary market meat then in a way it no longer is in the United States, and the assertive flavour these sauces were built to balance has largely gone with it.