No. 1674

Lamb Cutlets a la Durand

Cotelettes d'Agneau a la Durand

Pare eight lamb cutlets chosen from the covered sides of the rack; suppress the spinal bone and fibrous skin from the rib bones, flatten them slightly, season and sauté them in butter, turning them over when they are half done, and finish cooking them properly. Prepare some very thin pancakes (No. 3078), cut them into heart-shapes, having them slightly smaller than papers would be, as there is no necessity to plait them; push a string of quenelle forcemeat (No. 92) through a pocket on the edges and on half the hearts only, put a little cooked fine herb sauce (No. 461), in the center, lay a cutlet over this, with some more of the sauce above; close and fasten the pancake hermetically together, and range them all on a buttered dish, set it in a slack oven for ten minutes, sprinkle butter over and serve on the same dish with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) poured around.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a papillote dish with a crêpe standing in for the paper: eight rib chops, each sealed in a thin pancake with herb sauce. Ranhofer writes for a brigade with numbered stock recipes on hand, so the work is mostly in assembling the components before you cook.

The hinge: the forcemeat is the glueThe piped ribbon of quenelle forcemeat on the edge of half of each heart is what seals the pancake when it sets in the oven. Pipe it as a continuous unbroken border, fold the free half over and press it firmly onto the ribbon, and the parcel will hold; a gap and the sauce runs out onto the dish.
"Slack oven"About 275-300F. The parcels only need to heat through and set the forcemeat seam in ten minutes — the cutlets are already cooked.
Cook the cutlets shortSauté trimmed rib cutlets about two minutes a side in butter for pink at the bone, since they get a further ten minutes in the oven. Ranhofer only says to "finish cooking them properly", which gives no doneness; taken literally as fully cooked, the cutlets will be dry and grey after the second heating.
"Covered sides of the rack"The best-covered part of the rack, i.e. the well-muscled centre cutlets rather than the thin end ones. Ask for a centre-cut rack of eight and French the bones; "suppress the spinal bone" means chine the rack before cutting.
The cross-referenced componentsNo. 3078 is the thin pancake called for; a plain crêpe batter stands in for it, and for a savoury parcel you want it unsweetened. No. 92 is a quenelle forcemeat of the usual type (lean meat, panada, egg, cream), for which a modern mousseline is the nearest equivalent. No. 461 is a cooked fine herbs sauce — a wine-and-shallot reduction with chopped soft herbs bound into a made sauce.
Half-glazeNo. 413 is demi-glace — brown stock and espagnole reduced to a coating sauce. A well-reduced veal stock, lightly thickened, serves the same purpose poured around the dish.
Why no plaitingPaper papillotes were crimped shut in a plaited fold; the crêpe hearts are sealed with forcemeat instead, so cut them a little smaller than a paper case would be, with no allowance for a border.
YieldEight cutlets serve four as a main course, or eight as one course of a longer menu.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894, a compendium of well over a thousand pages covering the restaurant's repertoire, with every sauce and forcemeat numbered so that a dish could be written in a few lines. Cooking en papillote — sealed in oiled paper that puffs in the oven — was a standard nineteenth-century service for cutlets, and substituting a thin pancake for the paper turns the wrapper into something edible while keeping the same effect: the meat steams in its own sauce and nothing escapes onto the plate. The name "à la Durand" is one of the book's many such labels, and this one cannot now be tied to a particular person; the book does not say who or what was meant. The dish also shows the period's fondness for building one preparation out of four others: pancake, quenelle forcemeat, fine herbs sauce and half-glaze.