No. 1675

Lamb Cutlets a la Gavardi

Cotelettes d'Agneau a la Gavardi

Season eight fine lamb cutlets; range them in a sautoir lined with fragments of salt pork; roots and sliced onions; moisten to their height with stock (No. 194a) and cover with another piece of the pork; reduce the liquid slowly, remoisten once more, and finish to cook while glazing. Braise separately some rings of blanched carrot, and the same quantity of medium-sized onions each one weighing about an ounce, have also some braised lettuces (No. 2754), dress the cutlets on a dish in a circle, garnish the center with as many of the lettuces as there are cutlets and on each cutlet lay one of the carrot rings with an onion in the center, glaze the whole with meat glaze (No. 402). Reduce the braise stock after it has been strained and freed of fat, with a little espagnole (No. 414) and Marsala wine; serve this in a sauce-boat.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A braise dressed as a set piece: the cutlets cook slowly under salt pork, then everything is assembled into a ring and lacquered with glaze. Ranhofer writes for a kitchen with stock, espagnole and glace de viande already standing on the range, so most of the modern work is in the cross-references.

The hinge: braise, do not sautéDespite the word cutlet, these are never seared and served pink. They are moistened to their full height, the liquid is reduced almost away, remoistened, and reduced again so the meat finishes coated in its own syrupy stock. That second reduction is what produces the gloss; skipping it leaves you with boiled lamb.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan with a lid, roughly what is sold now as a sauté pan or a wide braiser. It needs to hold eight cutlets in one layer with no overlap, so 12 inches or a shallow oval Dutch oven.
Lamb cutletsRib chops cut from a rack, French-trimmed, about 3-4 oz each. Eight of them will serve four. Single-bone chops from a small rack are closer to the intent than thick double chops.
Salt pork and rootsFatty salt pork, rinsed of surface salt; thick-cut unsmoked bacon or pancetta will stand in. "Roots" here means the aromatic base — carrot, and often turnip and celery — sliced, not the garnish carrots, which are cooked separately.
The cross-referenced stocksNo. 194a is the stock the book cross-references throughout; espagnole (No. 414) is the classic brown mother sauce, roux-thickened brown stock reduced with mirepoix and tomato. A well-reduced brown veal or lamb stock, lightly thickened, serves for both. Meat glaze (No. 402) is stock reduced to a syrup — commercial glace de viande or demi-glace concentrate works.
Braised lettuceNo. 2754 is the book's braised lettuce; in modern terms, firm heads of romaine or Little Gem, blanched, refreshed, squeezed dry, halved or folded, then braised in buttered stock. They must be pressed of water or they will thin the sauce on the platter.
The garnish onionsAn ounce apiece means small pickling or cipollini onions, peeled whole and braised until tender but intact. Cut the carrot rings thick enough — half an inch — to sit flat on the cutlet and hold an onion in the middle.
TimingRib chops braise tender in about 40-50 minutes at a bare simmer, covered; the recipe gives no time and no temperature, and the reduction is done on the stove-top. The two reductions are what set the clock, not any single stated time.
Finishing the sauceStrain the braising liquid, let it settle, lift the fat, then reduce with a spoonful of espagnole and Marsala. Add the Marsala early enough to cook off its raw edge; a dry or medium-dry Marsala suits the salt pork better than a sweet one.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this cutlet is a fair specimen of its method: a French braise, a composed garnish, and a proper name attached to the whole. Dishes styled à la someone at Delmonico's are often said to have been christened for patrons, performers or visiting dignitaries, and the identity behind Gavardi is not documented in the book itself — Ranhofer names hundreds of garnishes this way and explains almost none of them. What the recipe does document plainly is the economy of a large brigade kitchen: the stock, the espagnole, the meat glaze and the braised lettuce all exist already as numbered preparations elsewhere in the volume, so the cook's task is assembly and reduction. The carrot ring with an onion set in its center, one per cutlet, is the period's decorative grammar at work, the sort of symmetrical plating that reads as fussy now but was the visible proof that a dish had passed through a professional kitchen rather than a domestic one.