No. 1607

Epigrammes of Mutton a la Jardiniere

Epigrammes de Mouton a la Jardiniere

Have eight mutton cutlets prepared as for plain (No. 1590), season, dip in eggs and bread-crumbs, equalize the bread-crumbs and fry in clarified butter or if preferred omit the breading and simply saute the cutlets plain. Braise some breast of mutton the same as for plain (No. 1585), then put them under a weight and when cold pare them into half hearts; dip these in Villeroi sauce (No. 560), and after this is cold dip them in eggs, then in bread-crumbs, immerse them in plenty of hot frying fat; when of a nice color, drain. Decorate the top of a hollow border mold with all kinds of cut up vegetables, fill the inside with quenelle forcemeat (No. 92), poach, unmold on hot dishes. Range the breasts and cutlets alternately in a circle on top of this and fill the empty center with a jardiniere (No. 677); serve an espagnole sauce (No. 414) separately after it has been reduced with the braise stock which has been strained and freed from fat, and some mushroom essence (No. 392).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand, assuming you already have his braising, breading, forcemeat and sauce numbers to hand. Stripped of the cross-references, this is a two-textured mutton dish: crisp cutlets alternating with crisp breast, built around a molded forcemeat ring and a pile of dressed vegetables.

Start two days outPlan on two working sessions -- the braised breast must be pressed flat under a weight and chilled firm before it can be pared into half-hearts and coated, and the Villeroi coating has to set cold again before the egg-and-crumb goes on. Braising and pressing one day, then cutting, coating and frying the next, is the easiest way to divide the work.
What an epigramme isIn French kitchen usage an épigramme is precisely this pairing: a rib cutlet served alongside a piece of braised, pressed, crumbed and fried breast from the same animal. It is not a garnish name, it is the structure of the dish.
Sauce VilleroiA velouté or allemande reduced until it is thick enough to cling to cold meat and set firm, essentially a savory enrobing paste rather than a pouring sauce. It must be spread on cold meat and chilled hard, or the crumb crust will slide off in the fat.
MuttonTrue mutton, sheep over two years old, is hard to buy in North America. Lamb shoulder chops and lamb breast behave the same way in this construction; if a butcher offers hogget or mutton, expect a longer braise and a much stronger flavor, which is what the espagnole and mushroom essence are there to meet.
Braising the breastMutton or lamb breast is fatty and sinewy and wants moist heat until fully tender, roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare simmer or in a 325F oven. Underbraised breast will not slice cleanly when cold, and no amount of coating will rescue it.
Frying fat"Plenty of hot frying fat" means deep fat at about 350 to 360F. Hotter and the Villeroi coating bursts; cooler and it soaks. The cutlets, by contrast, are shallow-fried in clarified butter and only need to reach medium, 3 to 4 minutes a side.
The border moldA hollow ring mold, decorated on the inside surface with cut vegetables, then filled with quenelle forcemeat and poached gently in a water bath, around 170 to 180F, until just set. Boiling water will curdle the forcemeat and weep fat.
JardinièreNot a sauce but a garnish of vegetables cut to uniform batons or dice and cooked separately: carrot, turnip, green beans, peas, flageolets, glazed and buttered. It goes into the well of the ring at the last moment.
YieldEight cutlets plus the breast pieces serve four generously as a main course, or eight in the multi-course sequence Ranhofer had in mind.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized as a working reference rather than a book to read: nearly every recipe leans on numbered formulas elsewhere in the volume, exactly as a brigade kitchen leaned on standing preparations. Épigrammes d'agneau or de mouton belong to the classical French repertoire of the same period and are generally explained as a way of getting two cuts and two textures onto one plate, the cheap braised breast dressed up to sit as an equal beside the prime cutlet. The name has attracted a well-worn anecdote about a hostess mistaking the word for a dish, which should be treated as kitchen folklore rather than documented history. What is documented is the taste it served: an American luxury restaurant in the 1890s presented mutton not as plain roast meat but architecturally, mounted on a poached forcemeat border with a ring of glazed vegetables at the center, with the braising liquid returned to the sauce so nothing of the flavor was wasted.