No. 1628

Boiled Leg of Mutton, Granville

Gigot de Mouton Bouilli a la Granville

Saw off short the end bone of a leg of mutton, suppress all surperfluous fat, and weigh it, plunge it into a large soup-pot containing boiling, salted water, cover, and continue to boil until the leg is cooked, which will require fifteen minutes for every pound of meat. Boiled legs of mutton should always be cooked rare. Have already prepared a garnishing of carrot balls, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, blanched and cooked in beef stock (No. 194a), small boiled onions; olive shaped potatoes, boiled, drained and then rolled in a little fresh butter with chopped parsley and lemon juice, and cork-shaped turnips, blanched and cooked in beef stock; form a handle about two inches long by scraping the end bone clean. Dress the leg, glaze the surface and garnish around with clusters of the vegetables. Serve at the same time a buttered tomatoed veloute sauce (No. 415). Just when ready to send to table, arrange a paper frill(No.10) on the end bone and serve.

← No. 1627 Leg of Mutton a la Roederer Mutton No. 1629 Boiled Leg of Mutton with Mashed Turnips and →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward boiled joint dressed up with turned vegetables and a sauce. The only real difficulty is the cooking time, which Ranhofer's own instruction contradicts.

The timing is the hingeFifteen minutes per pound in boiling water (90 minutes for a 6 lb leg) will not produce the rare meat the recipe itself demands. Cook to internal temperature instead: 130-135F at the thickest point away from the bone for medium-rare, and start testing well before the book's time is up.
Simmer, do not boilA rolling boil toughens the outer inch of muscle long before the centre is warm. Bring the pot to the boil, slide in the leg, then hold the water at a bare tremble.
Buying the legAsk for a bone-in leg with the shank left long enough to scrape clean for the two-inch handle. Modern legs are often sold boneless or aitchbone-off, which defeats both the handle and the paper frill.
Rest before carvingRanhofer says nothing about resting. Give it 15 minutes loosely covered or the juices run into the platter.
The cross-referencesNo. 194a is beef stock, No. 415 a tomato-flavoured veloute, No. 10 the cut-paper frill. Any good brown-free chicken or beef stock works for the vegetables, and a veloute is simply a blond roux loosened with stock, finished with butter and a spoonful of tomato puree.
Turned vegetablesCarrot balls of three-quarters of an inch are easiest with a large melon baller; olive-shaped potatoes are pared with a small knife (the classic turned olive is seven-sided), and cork-shaped turnips cut into short cylinders. Blanching the turnip first tempers its strong flavour, as the recipe directs.
"Glaze the surface"Brush the drained leg with reduced stock until it shines. Reduce a cup of the vegetable cooking stock to a syrupy few spoonfuls for this.
YieldA 6 lb bone-in leg with this much garnish serves eight generously.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, where many dishes carried a name honouring a patron, a performer, or a wine house the neighbouring recipe is a la Roederer, after the champagne. What the Granville attribution refers to is uncertain. Boiled mutton was an old English staple, usually sent to table with caper sauce or mashed turnip; what Ranhofer does is keep the plain English joint at the centre and surround it with the French service of the period vegetables turned to matching shapes, a coated sauce served apart, a scraped bone dressed in a cut-paper frill so the carver could lift it without a napkin. Mutton itself, meaning sheep over a year old and much stronger in flavour than lamb, was the ordinary butcher's meat of the nineteenth century and has all but disappeared from American markets since.