No. 1672

Lamb Cutlets a la Charleroi

Cotelettes d'Agneau a la Charleroi

Sauté sufficient trimmed and seasoned lamb cutlets in butter; when done, drain and arrange them on a baking sheet one beside the other; cover over with a buttered paper and let get cold under the pressure of a light weight. Pare the cutlets once more and lay on one of their sides a reduced and thick soubise puree (No. 723); smooth and let harden for an hour, then lift up the cutlets one by one, and dip them in a Villeroi sauce (No. 560), allow the surplus of this to drain off, then range them on a baking sheet, apart from one another so that they do not touch and keep this in a cool place to harden the sauce. Detach the cutlets from the sheet, trim off any surplus of sauce, and roll the chops in grated parmesan, dip them at once into beaten eggs, and cover over with white bread-crumbs; smooth the surfaces nicely and range them in a frying-basket (Fig. 121), plunge this into hot frying-fat, drain, trim the handles and serve on a folded napkin.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have his sauce chapter open beside you; the whole dish is an exercise in building a coating that sets firm enough to breadcrumb. Everything below serves that one aim.

The hinge: everything must be cold and firmThe cutlets are cooked, pressed cold, masked with stiff soubise, chilled, dipped in Villeroi, chilled again, then breaded. If any stage goes into the fryer soft, the coating splits and the sauce runs out. Allow the better part of a day, or spread it over two.
Soubise purée (No. 723)Soubise purée (No. 723) -- Ranhofer's onion purée, typically onions stewed in butter and bound thick (versions use béchamel or rice), then reduced and sieved to a stiff paste rather than a sauce. It must hold a smoothed surface on the cutlet without slumping; if it slumps, reduce it further and chill it again.
Villeroi sauce (No. 560)Classically an allemande (velouté finished with egg yolks) reduced with mushroom and ham essence until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track. It is a coating sauce, not a napping sauce, and it should set firm when cold. There is no modern jarred equivalent.
The cutletsRib chops from a rack of lamb, frenched so the bone forms a handle, pounded lightly and trimmed to an even round. Chops today are often larger, so two to three per person is a fair allowance.
"Sauté until done"They are fried a second time, so take them just past rare in the butter, about a minute or two a side for a chop under an inch thick. Cooked through at this stage and they will be grey and dry by the time the crust colours.
Frying temperatureRanhofer says only "hot frying-fat"; by modern practice around 350-360F suits. Hotter and the crumb browns before the interior warms; cooler and the coating absorbs fat and softens. Two to three minutes should give colour and heat the sauce through.
Breading orderParmesan first, then beaten egg, then white crumbs, exactly as written. The cheese layer grips the chilled Villeroi and keeps the egg from dissolving it. A second egg-and-crumb pass gives more insurance if the coating looks thin.
Trimming the handlesThe bones are cleaned of any surplus crumb after frying. Service on a folded napkin was the standard convention for fried dishes, and the napkin will also take up fat.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and this cutlet is pure haute-cuisine assembly work of the kind that filled a brigade kitchen between services. The masking sauce is traditionally said to take its name from the Villeroy family of French marshals and courtiers, and cutlets "a la Villeroi" - coated, chilled, crumbed and fried - were a fixed item of the nineteenth-century repertoire. The Charleroi variant adds the soubise, the onion purée generally traced to the Princes de Soubise and long standard in French cooking. Whether the name points to the Belgian town of Charleroi or is simply one of the many decorative garnish names that classical kitchens minted and reshuffled is not clear from Ranhofer, who records the formula and leaves the etymology alone.