No. 1635

Leg of Mutton with Puree of Beans

Gigot de Mouton a la Puree de Haricots

Pound half a pound of chopped fat salt pork with an equal quantity of cooked ham, bread-crumbs, two eggs, a finely shredded shallot, previously fried in butter, parsley, and a tiny bit of crushed garlic; cut some thin slices of a leg of mutton, flatten to three-sixteenths of an inch, pare to two inch squares, season them with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and cover one side with the prepared forcemeat, roll them up and run a skewer through each; dip them into melted butter, roll in breadcrumbs, and broil over a slow fire to attain a good color, then dress them on a puree of white beans (No. 706), with a little clear gravy (No. 404) poured over the whole.

← No. 1634 Leg of Mutton, Parisian Style, in the Oven Mutton No. 1636 Leg of Mutton with Rice →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a paupiette recipe in disguise: thin escalopes cut from a leg, spread with a rich pork-and-ham forcemeat, rolled, crumbed and grilled. The hinge is the fire — Ranhofer says a slow one, and he means it, because the crumb coating colors long before the roll is cooked through.

Slow fire, not high broilerUnder a modern overhead broiler at full blast the crumbs blacken in three or four minutes while the center is still raw. Set the rolls well down from the element, or grill over coals raked thin, and turn them so all four sides color; figure 12-15 minutes total for rolls of this size.
Cutting the slicesThree-sixteenths of an inch is just under 5 mm. Cut from the boned leg across the grain, then flatten between plastic sheets before paring to 2-inch (5 cm) squares. Leftover trimmings can be ground into the forcemeat.
MuttonMutton means sheep over about two years, strongly flavored and firm. It is sold by some halal and specialty butchers but is not a supermarket item; a boned leg of lamb behaves the same way here, though the dish loses the assertive flavor the bean puree was chosen to balance.
Fat salt porkSalt-cured, unsmoked pork fat. Fatback or salt pork from the pork section is the direct equivalent; if only smoked bacon is at hand, blanching it briefly will pull back some of the smoke, since the ham is already supplying cured flavor.
Forcemeat proportionsHalf a pound each of salt pork and cooked ham, plus crumbs and two eggs, makes more stuffing than a dozen small squares need; the quantities suit restaurant-scale service. Scale to roughly a quarter of that for four people, or freeze the surplus.
SkewersShort metal skewers or soaked wooden cocktail picks both work. Butcher's twine is easier to handle on the grill but has to be cut off before serving, which the skewer avoids.
The cross-referencesNo. 706 is Ranhofer's puree of white beans and No. 404 his clear gravy; both are separate entries to be looked up. A clear gravy of this type is an unthickened stock-based jus rather than a floured sauce.
Yield and donenessAllow three rolls per person as a main course. Rolled around a pork forcemeat, they should be cooked through rather than pink: 160F/71C at the center.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of the restaurant's repertoire, and the numbered cross-references here — puree No. 706, gravy No. 404 — show how the book was meant to work, as a system of components rather than standalone dishes. The preparation itself is a French kitchen commonplace: thin slices spread with farce, rolled and skewered, known variously as paupiettes, alouettes sans tête or, in older English books, olives. Mutton and white beans is a long-standing French pairing, as in gigot aux haricots; cassoulet likewise is built on beans cooked with fatty meats. Mutton was a far more ordinary sight on American tables in the 1890s than it is now, in a period when sheep were also widely kept for wool.