No. 1679

Lamb Cutlets a la Maison d'Or

Cotelettes d'Agneau a la Maison d'Or

Trim some slices of bread cut three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, into half heart shapes; fry them in butter and when cold cover the surfaces with some foies-gras in terrine, rounding it on the tops and set them in the oven for one instant to heat only. Dress in a circle and place a cooked cutlet on each slice of bread and lay some minced truffles in the center, cover the whole with Madeira sauce (No. 492) and garnish the handles with a frill (No. 10), then serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already has stock, sauce and cooked cutlets standing by, so the page reads as an assembly note. The hinge is timing: the croûtons must stay crisp and the foie gras must only be warmed, so everything is plated in the last two minutes.

What the recipe assumes you haveTwo components are cross-referenced rather than explained: Madeira sauce (No. 492, elsewhere in the book a brown sauce/half-glaze finished with Madeira) and the frills (No. 10, paper cuffs for the exposed rib bones). Substitute a good reduced veal or beef jus loosened with dry Madeira, and skip the frills if you have none.
"Foies-gras in terrine"This means foie gras already cooked and potted in a terrine — what a modern shop sells as bloc or terrine de foie gras, not raw lobes. It is spread on the fried bread and domed slightly; a smooth chicken-liver parfait is the honest budget stand-in.
"One instant" in the ovenA moderate oven for no more than a minute, purely to take the chill off. Foie gras terrine begins to melt and weep fat at low heat, so watch it rather than time it.
The croûtonsThree-sixteenths of an inch is a scant 5 mm — thin. Cut half-heart shapes slightly larger than the cutlet base, fry in clarified butter until pale gold on both sides, and drain well; damp bread collapses under the sauce.
Cooking the cutletsRanhofer only says "cooked." Trimmed, frenched lamb rib chops about ¾ inch thick want 2–3 minutes a side in a very hot pan, to an internal 130–135F for pink, then a short rest. They should be barely warm-through, not braised.
TrufflesMinced black truffle in the centre of the ring is the period flourish. Fresh or good jarred truffle is worth it in this small quantity; truffle oil is not, as it reads as perfume against the foie gras.
Sauce, sparinglyThe recipe says to "cover the whole" with the Madeira sauce; a restrained napping is safer in practice, since flooding the plate softens the bread and buries the truffle.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives no yield; figure two to three cutlets, each on its own croûton, per person as a main course, or one apiece as a course in a longer menu. The recipe asks only that they be dressed in a circle, so plate on a warm platter arranged in a ring.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a full record of that house's repertoire — some twelve hundred pages of numbered, cross-referenced formulas in the manner of the French grande cuisine he had trained in. The name points to the Maison Dorée, a celebrated Paris restaurant of the Second Empire on the Boulevard des Italiens; American restaurateurs borrowed such names freely, and San Francisco had its own Maison Dorée as well, so the garnish is best read as an homage to a style rather than a documented dish from one kitchen. The construction itself — meat set on a fried bread croûton spread with foie gras, truffle in the middle, Madeira sauce over — is the standard luxury grammar of the 1880s and 1890s, when foie gras in terrine and preserved truffles had become reliably importable and a chef signalled expense by stacking all three on a single chop.</invoke>