No. 1698

Lamb Head, Genoise or Vinaigrette Sauce

Tete d'Agneau Sauce Genoise ou Vinaigrette

Bone the head as far as the eye, remove both the lower and upper jaw and the eyes, leaving on the crown only with the brain; steep and blanch the head for fifteen minutes, then refresh, wipe, singe and tie it up. Dilute some flour in cold water, adding to it some salt, pepper, onions, carrots, a garnished bouquet and vinegar; boil the head in this for two hours, then drain and untie it and dress on a napkin with parsley ranged around. Serve separately a well-buttered and acidulated genoise sauce (No. 470) or else a vinaigrette sauce (No. 634).

← No. 1697 Lamb Haslets Marinated Lamb No. 1699 Lamb Kidneys a la Lully →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a butcher who will hand over a lamb's head split, skinned or unskinned, as asked. Everything else here is technique that still works, provided the head is kept pale and the cooking liquor stays below a rolling boil.

The hinge: cook it in a blancThe flour diluted in cold water with vinegar is a blanc, a cooking liquor that keeps white offal white; the flour clouds the water and shields the meat from air, and the acid firms it. Whisk the flour into cold water before it ever meets heat, or you will boil lumps around the head.
Sourcing and the age of the animalAsk a halal or Greek butcher for a milk-lamb head; supermarkets do not stock them. Ovine skull and brain from animals over twelve months are classed as specified risk material and cannot legally be sold for food in the UK and EU, so only genuinely young lamb heads reach the counter. Rules differ by country; ask the butcher to confirm the age.
"Steep" means a long cold soak"Steep" means a cold soak -- The recipe does not give a separate time for it; in Ranhofer's usage steeping is a cold-water soak to draw out blood, and several hours in frequently changed water, or overnight, is the usual practice. Skimp on it and grey patches tend to remain that the flour-water will not whiten.
Blanch, refresh, singeFifteen minutes at a bare simmer from cold water, then straight into iced water. Singeing burns off any remaining hair; a gas flame or a cook's blowtorch does what a coal range once did.
Two hours, but not at a boilRanhofer says boil; a bare simmer around 180-190F is gentler, since a hard boil can shred the cheek meat off the bone and break up the brain. The head is tied to hold its shape through the long cooking.
Sauce Genoise here is not the cakeNo relation to genoise sponge. The recipe itself calls for the genoise sauce (No. 470) to be well buttered and acidulated, and offers Ranhofer's vinaigrette (No. 634) as the alternative, the cold sharp dressing of the kind still served with tete de veau. Check both cross-references for their exact composition.
Dressing on a napkinA folded linen napkin on the platter absorbs the liquor that drains from the head so the parsley border stays crisp. It is presentation, not a cooking step, and a wire rack over a warm dish does the same work.
YieldOne head is a course for two, or one if the brain is counted as the point of the dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that house's repertoire, which is why a dish this frankly peasant in origin sits among truffled entrees: French professional cooking never abandoned head cookery, and tete de veau vinaigrette was a bourgeois classic that a chef trained in Paris would have considered basic. The lamb's head is its cheaper, smaller cousin, treated by exactly the same method - purge, blanch, cook in a blanc, serve with a sharp cold sauce to cut the gelatine. The insistence on removing the jaws and eyes while leaving "the crown only with the brain" tells you where the value lay: the brain and the cheek. Whole-head service of this kind largely vanished from American restaurants in the twentieth century, and its survival now is mostly in Greek, Turkish, Mexican and North African kitchens rather than French ones.