No. 1708

Leg of Lamb, a la Guyane

Gigot d'Agneau a la Guyane

Bone a leg of yearling lamb reserving the bone for the handle; fill the hollow space with a dressing made of fresh pork, bacon, cooked ham, chopped mushrooms and soaked and pressed out bread-crumbs, adding to it eggs and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Sew up the leg and then brown it in some fat pork; wet it with white wine and put in with it some roots, carrots, turnips, celery and onions; season, boil, skim and continue the boiling for three to four hours, then strain the stock, free it of its fat and keep back half of it, reduce the other half with espagnole sauce (No. 414) and a little tomato puree (No. 730) with a dash of cayenne added. Dress the leg, pare the handle nicely and range an Indian risot (No. 737) around; cover with the stock after it has been well reduced and place a paper frill (No. 10) on the handle bone. Pour the prepared sauce in a sauce bowl and serve it at the same time.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stockpot already going and a numbered sauce list at hand, so the quantities are left to judgment. The essentials translate cleanly once you read the cooking method for what it is: a braise, not a boil.

The hinge: keep it below a simmer"boil, skim and continue the boiling" in this period means a bare tremble, not a rolling boil, which would shred the stuffed leg and cloud the stock you are about to reduce into sauce. Ranhofer works it on the stove and says nothing about covering or about an oven; a low oven is one modern way to hold the liquid there without attention.
TimingThree to four hours suits mutton-aged yearling lamb on the bone. A boned, stuffed leg from a modern lamb of five to seven months is done in about 2 to 2 1/2 hours; the stuffing contains pork and egg, so check that its centre reaches 165F.
The handleBone the leg from the pelvic end, leaving the shank bone in place and scraped clean for two or three inches. That protruding bone is the "handle" the paper frill goes on, and it also gives you something to carve against.
Forcemeat proportionsNone are given. For a 5-6 lb leg, roughly 1 lb fresh pork shoulder and 4 oz each bacon and cooked ham, all ground, with 6-8 oz mushrooms, 2 cups bread soaked in milk and squeezed dry, and two eggs to bind. Fry a spoonful to taste it for salt before you sew up.
"Fat pork" and "roots"Fat pork is salt pork or fresh pork fatback, used as the browning medium; butter and oil do the same work. "Roots" is the period term for the aromatic root vegetables that follow in the list, cut in large pieces so they can be discarded when the stock is strained.
Wine and liquidUnspecified. A bottle of dry white wine reduced briefly, then stock or water to come two-thirds up the meat, is in keeping. Half the strained, degreased stock is reduced with espagnole and tomato for the sauce boat; the other half is reduced hard to a glaze to coat the leg.
Cross-referencesEspagnole (No. 414) is the classic brown sauce built on a brown roux and veal stock; a good reduced demi-glace stands in. "Indian risot" (No. 737) is a rice garnish in the Indian style -- a pilaf rather than a creamy risotto -- and on the evidence of the name and the cayenne here it will be curried; the numbered recipe itself is not on this page.
YieldA stuffed leg of this size serves eight to ten, and it slices more neatly if you let it rest twenty minutes before pulling the trussing thread.

A Little History

The name points to Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana; the resemblance to the name of the pepper is often noted, though the word for the pepper is generally traced to a Tupi term that reached Europe via Portuguese. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working system, which is why almost every component here is a numbered cross-reference to another page: the espagnole, the tomato pur he paper frill for the bone. The boned-and-stuffed leg with the shank left as a handle is an older French service idea, dressed for the table so a carver could hold it upright, and the frilled bone is a survival of the period's taste for making the mechanics of a dish look deliberate.