No. 1651

Shoulder of Mutton, Marinated with Cream Sauce

Epaule de Mouton Marinee Sauce a la Creme

Bone the shoulder as far as half way down the shank bone; lard the inside of the meat with small lardons (No. 2, Fig. 52), seasoned with salt and pepper, then set it into a vessel and pour over a cooked and cold marinade (No. 114), leaving it in for twelve hours. Line a saucepan with bards of fat pork and sliced carrots and onions; roll and tie the shoulder and lay it on top; moisten with a pint of stock (No. 194a), and when reduced to a glaze, remoisten and cook the meat to a fine color in the oven for three hours and a half; remove the shoulder skim the fat from the stock, add one pint of cream to the stock, and let simmer for a few minutes; strain through a sieve and reduce to the consistency of a good sauce, adding to it a very little breadcrumbs; serve this at the same time as the shoulder.

← No. 1650 Saddle or Baron-in the Oven-with Mashed Pota Mutton No. 1652 Shoulder of Mutton with Potatoes →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a numbered reference book at hand; stripped of its cross-references this is a larded, marinated, cream-finished braise of shoulder. The hinge is the two-stage moistening: the first pint of stock must be cooked down to a sticky glaze before you add more, or the meat never takes its color and the sauce stays thin.

Marinade No. 114Ranhofer's cooked marinade is a wine-and-vinegar mixture simmered with aromatic vegetables and herbs, then cooled completely before it touches the meat; the recipe does not specify which. Any cooked wine marinade of that type will do; the twelve hours belongs in the refrigerator, not on a cool larder shelf.
LardingLardons here are strips of firm back fat drawn through the meat with a larding needle. You can skip it, but if you want the effect, chill the fat hard and cut it into small batons -- the recipe calls for the smaller size -- before threading.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of pork back fat used to line the pan beneath the meat. Thinly sliced pancetta or unsmoked streaky bacon substitutes; smoked bacon will dominate the cream sauce.
Stock No. 194aOne of the numbered stocks in Ranhofer's system. Use an unsalted chicken or veal stock, since it is going to be reduced twice and salted stock will end up over-seasoned.
Oven temperatureThe book gives no temperature. Three and a half hours suggests a slow oven; at true roasting heat a rolled shoulder this size will be dry long before the connective tissue gives.
Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over two years old, strongly flavored and slow to tenderize; that is why the marinade and the long braise. A supermarket lamb shoulder of 4-5 lb will be tender in about 2 1/2 to 3 hours and needs no more than a few hours in the marinade.
The cream sauceSkim the fat properly before the cream goes in, or the sauce may split at the reduction stage. The "very little breadcrumbs" are a thickener in the old style; the recipe strains the sauce, then adds them as it reduces. A teaspoon or two of fine dry crumbs is enough, and further reduction does most of the work.
YieldA boned and rolled shoulder of this kind serves six to eight, carved in slices across the roll, with the sauce sent separately as directed.

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 reads like a working system rather than a book of dishes: almost every recipe points to a numbered stock, garnish or marinade elsewhere in the volume. Marinating mutton in cooked wine and vinegar was a standard French treatment, often described as preparing it en chevreuil — in the manner of venison — since the acid and spice pushed strong old sheep toward the flavor of game, which was more fashionable and more expensive. The shoulder was the cheap end of the animal, awkward to carve and full of connective tissue, and boning, rolling and braising it was the classic way to turn it into something that could be sent to a dining room. The cream finish, thickened with a pinch of breadcrumbs rather than roux, belongs to the same period habit of building sauces out of the braising liquid itself.