No. 1711

Slices of Leg of Lamb a la Previllot

Tranches de Gigot d'Agneau a la Previllot

Cut some three-sixteenths of an inch thick slices from the kernel of a raw leg of lamb, pare them into rounds, two inches in diameter, season with salt and fry in clarified butter. Fry colorless in butter, one ounce of onions cut in three-sixteenth inch squares, half a pound of mushrooms in quarter inch pieces, some peeled egg-plant cut in three-eight inch squares and a little piece of garlic; moisten with clear gravy (No. 404) and half-glaze (No. 400) and reduce, then pour it into a dish, bestrew with chopped parsley and lay the slices of lamb over.

← No. 1710 Slices of Leg of Lamb a la Dordogne Lamb No. 1712 Blanquette of Leg of Lamb →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already going, so the two cross-references carry most of the flavor. Everything else is quick work in a sauté pan.

The "kernel" of the legThis is the noix, the large rounded topside muscle of the leg. Ask for a boneless top round of lamb, or bone out a leg and use the thickest single muscle; the sinewy shank and knuckle will not cut into clean rounds.
Slice thicknessThree-sixteenths of an inch is about 5 mm. Chill the meat firm before slicing, and cut across the grain so the two-inch rounds stay tender.
Cooking the lambAt 5 mm these need roughly a minute a side in hot clarified butter, no more. They are meant to stay pink; held in the pan while the garnish reduces they will be gray and tight.
"Fry colorless"Sweat the onion, mushroom and eggplant in butter over moderate heat without letting them take color. Browning here would fight the half-glaze, which is already dark and concentrated.
The eggplantPeel it, cut the roughly 1 cm dice, and salt it for twenty minutes if it is large and seedy. Eggplant soaks up butter, so give it its own space in the pan or it will steam.
Nos. 404 and 400Clear gravy is a light brown meat stock; half-glaze is espagnole reduced with stock until it coats a spoon. Substitute a good unsalted brown stock reduced by half, with a spoonful of demi-glace or reduced red wine for body. Season at the end — reduction concentrates salt fast.
AssemblyThe vegetable ragout goes down first, parsley over it, lamb on top. Warm the serving dish; the sauce is thin enough to chill quickly.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield and no weight of lamb; half a pound of mushrooms and an ounce of onion make a garnish for a small number of portions, and the number of rounds must be judged from the leg you have.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years' cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organized like a professional's reference rather than a home cookbook — hence the numbered sauces this recipe leans on. Garnishes bearing a surname, as "à la Previllot" does, were the standard currency of nineteenth-century restaurant French: some commemorate a patron or a colleague, many were coined to distinguish one arrangement of the same cuts from another, and the person behind the name is often unrecoverable. What is more telling here is the eggplant. Ranhofer treats it as an ordinary sauté vegetable, diced small and cooked colorless in butter.