No. 1623

Leg of Mutton a la Bourdaloue

Gigot de Mouton a la Bourdaloue

Bone the leg without opening it, and lard the meat with raw ham, seasoned with salt, pepper, fine spices and chopped parsley. Tie up the leg and fry it in butter, then moisten with red wine and beef stock (No. 194a), and add small half inch blanched carrot balls, small onions and a garnished bunch of parsley, having the moistening to three-quarters the height of the leg, season and set it in a slow oven for three or four hours. After the leg is cooked, dress it on a dish, strain the stock, free it of its fat and reduce it with some brown sauce (No. 414). Garnish one side with the carrots and the other with the onions and at both ends place some mushrooms sauted in butter (No. 2760). Pour a part of the sauce over the onions and carrots and serve the rest in a sauce-boat.

← No. 1622 Leg of Mutton a la Bordelaise Mutton No. 1624 Leg of Mutton a la Bourgeoise →

For the Modern Kitchen

A tunnel-boned leg braised in red wine, from Charles Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen. The cross-references are to other numbered recipes in the same book; each has a straightforward modern equivalent.

Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over two years old, strongly flavoured and firm enough to take four hours of braising. A supermarket leg of lamb is a few months old and will be falling apart well before then; a 5-6 lb boned leg needs roughly two and a half to three hours. If you can buy true mutton or hogget from a halal butcher or a farm, the original timing holds.
Bone it without opening itThis is tunnel boning: work the knife around the bone from the wide end, keeping the outer muscle intact so the leg stays a closed cylinder. A butcher will do it if asked. A butterflied leg rolled and tied is a workable substitute but gives a looser slice.
Larding with raw hamCut prosciutto, speck or unsmoked pancetta into strips about a quarter inch square, roll them in salt, pepper, chopped parsley and a pinch of the spice blend, and draw them through the meat with a larding needle. Ranhofer's "fine spices" is his epices fines: a mix in which white pepper, nutmeg, clove, mace, bay and thyme are typical.
Slow ovenThe recipe gives no figure; a slow oven is usually taken as somewhere in the region of 275-325F. The braise should barely tremble; at a simmer the outer inch of the leg shreds while the centre is still tight.
Liquid levelThree-quarters up the leg, not covered. The exposed top browns and concentrates as it cooks, which is the point of braising rather than boiling. Turn the leg once at the halfway mark.
The numbered referencesNo. 194a is the book's beef stock; unsalted commercial beef stock reduced by a third will do. No. 414 is the book's brown sauce, of the roux-thickened espagnole type; a well-reduced demi-glace serves. No. 2760 is simply mushrooms sauteed in butter.
Carrot balls and the parsley bunchHalf-inch balls are cut with the larger end of a parisienne scoop, then blanched a minute so they finish tender in the braise rather than turning to mush. The "garnished bunch of parsley" is a bouquet garni: parsley stems tied with thyme and a bay leaf, removed before saucing.
Finishing the sauceStrain, then let the liquid settle a few minutes and skim; a fat separator is faster. Reduce with the brown sauce until it coats a spoon. Salt only at this stage, since the ham and the reduction both push the seasoning up.
YieldA boned leg of this size serves eight to ten. Carve in rounds across the cylinder, which is the reason for keeping the leg closed in the first place.

A Little History

Bourdaloue is a Paris street name, and dishes carrying it are generally traced to the rue Bourdaloue near Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, itself named for Louis Bourdaloue, the seventeenth-century Jesuit preacher; the best-known survivor is the almond-cream pear tart. The connection between the preacher and a wine-braised leg of mutton is decorative rather than culinary, which was typical of nineteenth-century restaurant naming: Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) lists a run of legs of mutton in sequence, each distinguished by garnish and each given a name that told a Delmonico's diner what to expect. What the dish itself records is the older status of mutton, which through much of the nineteenth century was widely esteemed, with lamb often treated as the lesser, immature thing. The technique of larding lean meat with seasoned strips of ham or pork fat belongs to the same world of tough, slow-cooked joints, and became much less common in home kitchens as the animals reaching the butcher grew younger.