No. 1610

Noisettes of Mutton, Glazed

Noisettes de Mouton Glacees

Noisettes of fillet of mutton are cut from the large fillet or tenderloin of a saddle, or else from the minion fillet. Cut them up into slanting four ounce pieces or thereabouts, beat lightly, then pare them round-shaped about two inches in diameter; after they are trimmed they should each weigh three ounces; season and place them in a deep vessel with a little Madeira wine, thyme, and bay leaf, leaving them to marinate for one hour; drain and wipe them thoroughly dry, then range them in a sautoir with hot clarified butter, and let fry on both sides, turning them over. Drain off the butter and replace it by two spoonfuls of clear gravy (No. 404), and the Madeira from the marinade; let the liquid fall to a glaze while turning the noisettes over, then take them out and pare them of equal size. Cover one side of each with a layer of consistent soubise puree (No. 723), smooth them dome-form, and range on a buttered baking sheet; coat them over with a layer of reduced and nearly cold espagnole sauce (No. 414), and then push them into a slow oven to glaze. Lay each separate noisette on a thin slice of fried bread also covered with soubise and dress on a very hot dish.

← No. 1609 Fillets of Mutton Grenadins, Poivrade Sauce Mutton No. 1611 Noisettes of Mutton, Provencal Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed plate rather than a single operation: seared medallions, a glaze built in the pan, an onion purée dome and a sauce set under heat. Read it as four short tasks and have the two sauces made before the meat goes near the fire.

The hinge: glaze, don't stewAfter the butter is poured off, the gravy and Madeira should reduce to a syrup that coats the noisettes as you turn them, a matter of two or three minutes over lively heat. If the liquid sits and simmers, the medallions overcook and the glaze never gets tacky.
Mutton and the cutMutton — sheep over about two years — is rarely sold in the US and only sporadically in the UK. Lamb loin from a saddle behaves the same way and cooks faster; the "minion fillet" is the small tenderloin strip lying under the loin. Four-ounce slanting slices trimmed to three ounces means real waste, so buy roughly a third more than the finished weight.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow sauté pan, wide enough to hold the noisettes without touching. Any heavy skillet works; what matters is that it is wide, so the reduction concentrates rather than pooling.
SpoonfulsRanhofer's "spoonful" appears to mean a kitchen serving spoon rather than a teaspoon or tablespoon, so probably nearer two tablespoons than one. Two spoonfuls of gravy plus the drained marinade comes to something like a quarter to a third of a cup of liquid. The recipe gives no yield, so judge the quantity by how many noisettes are in the pan.
The cross-referenced saucesNo. 404 is a clear brown gravy — reduced veal and beef stock, unthickened. No. 414 espagnole is a brown roux sauce reduced with stock; "reduced and nearly cold" means it should be thick enough to sit on the dome without running. No. 723 soubise is a stiff onion pur hwith rice or thick b chamel; drive off the moisture or it will slump.
"Slow oven to glaze"A slow oven means a gentle heat, perhaps 250-300F by modern reckoning, though the book gives no figure. Glazing in a kitchen of this period was often done under a salamander — radiant heat from above that colored the sauce in a minute or two — and a broiler set well back from the element does much the same job, with less risk of drying the meat than a long wait in a low oven.
DonenessThree-ounce medallions of lamb loin need very little time — sear both sides, glaze, then glaze the surface under heat. Pull them at medium-rare to medium; the coating steps add heat, so undershoot in the pan.
Yield and serviceFigure two noisettes per person as a main course. The fried bread croutons should be cut to the diameter of the meat and made ahead, and the dish warmed thoroughly — the espagnole and soubise both stiffen fast on a cool plate.

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 the house method plainly: a plain sautéed medallion is only the starting point, with the dish built up through a marinade, a pan glaze, a purée and a sauce, each sent off to a numbered recipe elsewhere in the book. Noisette means "hazelnut," used in French kitchens for a small round nut of meat cut from the loin or fillet. The soubise purée is generally traced to the eighteenth-century Prince de Soubise, whose kitchen the name is attached to by tradition rather than by any surviving document. The presence of a whole section on mutton is itself a period marker: American and European tables of the 1890s ate a good deal of mature sheep, and the strong flavor that later drove mutton off the menu was here treated as something to be matched with Madeira, thyme and a sweet onion purée rather than disguised.