No. 1709

Leg of Lamb, King's Pilau

Gigot d'Agneau Pilau du Roi

Have one pound of boned leg of lamb; pare off all the fat and sinews and then divide it into three-quarters of an inch pieces; have also a quarter of a pound of three-eighth inch dice of raw ham, fry all these in butter over a bright fire with a garnished bunch of parsley (No. 123); moisten with half a pint of stock (No. 194a), season and reduce to a glaze, then remoisten once more with another half pint and so on until the pilau is done and very rich; season with a dash of cayenne pepper and salt. Fry colorless a chopped onion in butter, add to it a quarter of a pound of washed and dried rice; when this is quite hot, wet it with twice its volume of the stock from the pilau and stock (No. 194a), cover, bring to a boil and place it in the oven for twenty minutes and as soon as done, add butter and parmesan. Fill a border mold (Fig. 139) with this, unmold on a dish, remove the bunch of parsley from the pilau and pour it into the center of the border, cover over with a layer of the same rice; reserved for the purpose, smooth it neatly with a knife, strew' parmesan cheese on top, besprinkle with butter and brown in a hot oven.

← No. 1708 Leg of Lamb, a la Guyane Lamb No. 1710 Slices of Leg of Lamb a la Dordogne →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stockpot always going and cross-references doing the work of half the instructions. Unpacked, this is a braise of diced lamb served inside a ring of baked parmesan rice.

The hinge: glaze, then remoistenThe lamb is not simmered in a pot of liquid. Each half pint goes in, reduces until it films the pan as a glaze, and only then is replaced. That repeated reduction is what makes the sauce "very rich" without flour or cream; skip it and you have a watery stew.
Half a pintOne US cup, added twice or three times over the course of the braise. Expect 2 to 3 cups of stock in total, depending on how fast your pan reduces.
The cross-referencesNo. 123 is Ranhofer's garnished bunch of parsley, i.e. a bouquet garni, removed before serving. No. 194 a is one of his stocks; a good unsalted chicken or veal stock stands in. Because the liquid is reduced to a glaze repeatedly, use unsalted stock or the finished dish will be far too salty.
Raw hamNot cooked, sliced ham. He means an uncooked cured leg; a dry-cured ham such as prosciutto or a French jambon cru stands in. Cut in 3/8-inch dice as written; smaller and it disappears into the sauce.
Oven temperaturesRanhofer gives no temperature for the covered rice; a moderate oven, around 350F, for the twenty minutes he specifies. For the final browning he does call for a "hot oven": 425 to 450F, or run it under the broiler for two or three minutes.
The riceA quarter pound is roughly two-thirds of a cup dry, wetted with twice its volume — about 1 1/3 cups — of the combined pilau cooking liquid and stock. He uses part of it to fill the border mold and reserves the rest to cap the meat, so divide it before you fill anything.
The border moldFig. 139 is a border, i.e. ring, mold. Butter it well, pack the hot rice in firmly, let it settle a minute, then invert onto an ovenproof platter — the assembled dish goes back into the oven to brown, so serve on something that can take the heat.
YieldOne pound of boned lamb with a quarter pound of ham and a quarter pound of rice feeds two generously, three at a table with other courses. Scale the whole thing up proportionally; the glaze-and-remoisten method works fine in a wider pan.

A Little History

Pilau reached the French repertoire through Ottoman and Persian cooking, and by the late nineteenth century it had been thoroughly domesticated: the rice is fried in butter with onion, wetted with a measured volume of stock and baked, which is the standard European pilaf method rather than anything closer to its origins. The grand name and the parmesan crust are the giveaway that this is a restaurant dish rather than a borrowed one. Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that kitchen's working repertoire written down — hence the terse cross-references to numbered stocks and garnishes, which assumed a cook with the rest of the book, and the rest of the brigade, at hand. Serving a braise inside a molded rice border was a common way of giving a modest quantity of meat the architecture a formal service demanded; a pound of lamb, dressed this way, arrives at the table looking like a centerpiece.