No. 1717

Loin of Yearling Lamb, German Style

Longe d'Agneau Tardif a l'Allemande

Take a loin of yearling lamb, or the part beginning from the top of the leg and extending as far as the first rib on the rack; remove the aitchbone without injuring the minion fillet, pare carefully the fat from the interior, and remove the tough skin from the sirloin, season with pepper, salt and nutmeg. Roll this loin up, tie it firmly and then braise it in a mirepoix stock (No. 419) with a little brandy added. It will take two hours and a half to three hours to cook; drain, untie and set it under a light weight or under the press (No. 71) and when cold cut the meat into half heart-shaped slices and dress them in a circle on a baking dish, cover over with an allemande sauce (No. 407), besprinkle with bread-crumbs and a little grated parmesan cheese, pour butter over and set the dish in a moderate oven. When it has attained a fine color, withdraw from the oven and drain off the butter, garnish the center with minced truffles and mushrooms mixed with some lighter allemande sauce (No. 407).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cross-references assume you own the whole book; the dish is really a two-day project — braise and press the loin one day, slice and gratinate the next.

Yearling lambAgneau tardif indicates a late-born animal past the milk-fed spring stage, close to what a British butcher calls hogget. Ordinary supermarket lamb is younger and milder; a full saddle from an older lamb, perhaps 6–8 lb bone-in, is the nearest thing you can order.
The cutWhat he describes is the whole loin section, from the hip through to the first rib of the rack, taken as one piece; across both sides that is a saddle. The minion fillet is the tenderloin lying under the backbone — it is easily cut away when the aitchbone comes out, so bone from the outside in. Ask the butcher to remove the aitchbone and chine and leave the flaps on for rolling.
Mirepoix stockNo. 419 is Ranhofer's braising mirepoix, in the usual form diced carrot, onion and celery with ham or bacon sweated in butter and moistened with stock and wine; check the original for his exact formula. A well-made brown chicken or veal stock with the same vegetables and a glass of white wine reaches the same place.
Braising temperatureNo heat is specified. Two and a half to three hours suits a rolled loin only at a bare tremble — in a modern oven that is somewhere around 300–325F, liquid coming a third of the way up. Cover, and turn the meat once. Boiling shreds the outer muscle before the centre is tender.
PressingThis is the hinge. The loin is cooled under weight so it slices cleanly into thin half-hearts without falling apart; skip it and you get ragged fragments. Wrap the drained, untied loin tightly, set it on a tray, lay a board and a few tins on top, and refrigerate overnight.
Allemande sauceNo. 407 is a velouté finished with an egg-yolk and cream liaison and sharpened with lemon — the sauce, not the country, gives the dish its name. It must not boil after the yolks go in. Thin a portion with a little stock for the garnish, as directed.
Moderate oven350F. The dish goes in only to heat through and colour the crumbs and parmesan — fifteen to twenty minutes. Longer and the pressed slices dry out and the liaison in the sauce breaks.
TrufflesFresh black truffle in quantity is now a luxury it was not in 1894. Finely diced sautéed cremini or a small amount of preserved truffle in the mushroom mixture keeps the intent; truffle oil does not.
YieldA joint of this size, pressed and sliced thin, will serve roughly eight to ten as a course. Ranhofer gives no number here.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium of the kitchen he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the classical French habit of building a second dish out of a first: a large braised joint is pressed cold, sliced, sauced and gratinated, which both stretched an expensive cut and let the kitchen fire orders quickly at service. The name is a piece of French sauce vocabulary rather than a claim about German cooking à l'allemande in this period signals the pale velouté finished with egg yolks and lemon, said to be called German simply for its blondness beside the brown sauces. That name is often said to have fallen out of favour in French kitchens during and after the First World War, when it was supposedly relabelled sauce parisienne, though the change is more tradition than documented fact. The reliance on truffles, parmesan and a mirepoix laced with brandy for what is essentially reheated cold lamb is characteristic of Ranhofer's restaurant: nothing left plain that could be dressed.