No. 1720

Minion Fillets of Lamb a la Benoist

Filets Mignons d'Agneau a la Benoist

Pare the minion fillets, suppressing all fat and sinews; cut the meats transversely into small slices, flatten, pare them into rounds, and when ready season with salt; saute them in half butter and half oil, drain on a plate, and glaze over with a brush. Lay each piece of meat on a thin crust of bread cut the same size as the noisettes, and on top of every one place a slice of cooked foies-gras cut also the same dimension; cover the whole quickly with a pretty thick white wine sauce (No. 492), in which grated parmesan has been added; bestrew with grated parmesan, and glaze the surface under a gas salamander (Fig. 123) or a very hot oven. Dress on a hot dish and set a fine slice of truffle on each; serve immediately.

← No. 1719 Minced Lamb a la Rivera Lamb No. 1721 Minion Fillets of Lamb a la Landgrave →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnished lamb dish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, built in layers and finished under direct heat. Nothing here is difficult, but the assembly must happen fast and the browning must be brief, or the lamb overcooks while the sauce sets.

The cut"Minion fillets" are the small tenderloins that run under the saddle of lamb, a pair weighing only a few ounces each. Butchers rarely break out lamb tenderloin now; boned loin, trimmed of all fat and silverskin and cut into rounds, gives the same noisettes.
Slicing and paringCut across the grain into slices, press them lightly flat with the side of a knife, then pare to even rounds. The original gives no thickness. Uniform diameter is the whole point, since bread, foie gras and sauce are all cut to match.
Sauté timingHalf butter and half oil in a hot pan, one to two minutes a side at most. These are thin medallions of tenderloin; they want to come out pink, and any further cooking under the salamander is only for the crust.
"Glaze over with a brush"This means brushing the meat with meat glaze -- reduced brown stock, glace de viande, thick enough to lacquer. It is not sugar and not a broiler step; it happens on the plate before assembly.
The bread baseThin crusts of bread cut to the size of the noisettes. The recipe does not say how they are prepared; they need to be firm and dry enough to take the sauce without collapsing.
Sauce No. 492Ranhofer's white wine sauce, with grated Parmesan stirred in as the recipe directs. It must be thick enough to sit on the stack rather than run off, so reduce it further than you would a pouring sauce.
Salamander equivalentA salamander is overhead radiant heat. Use the broiler at its highest setting with the rack close, and count in seconds -- you want the Parmesan spotted brown and no more. The recipe's alternative is "a very hot oven", but the broiler is the closer match.
Foie gras and truffleThe foie gras is specified as cooked -- a terrine or torchon, sliced cold to the same round. It will soften under the broiler, which is intended. Add the truffle slice after the browning, never before, or its aroma is lost.
YieldThe original gives none. Reckon three or four noisettes per person as a course, and assemble on a hot dish immediately before serving; the stacks do not hold.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe shows the house style exactly: a small, expensive cut, a bread base, foie gras, a cheese-enriched sauce glazed under a salamander, and a truffle on top. The construction is close kin to the tournedos and noisette preparations that filled French restaurant menus of the period, where a garnish name -- here "a la Benoist" -- often served as shorthand for a fixed combination of elements. Ranhofer's garnish names frequently honored patrons, colleagues or contemporaries; who "Benoist" was is not recorded here. What the recipe records most clearly is the labor available in a nineteenth-century brigade kitchen: paring lamb tenderloin into matched rounds, cutting bread and foie gras to the same gauge, and glazing each portion to order was routine work for a staff, and is why dishes like this vanished from menus long before their ingredients did.