No. 1726

Minion Fillets of Lamb Printaniere

Filets Mignons d'Agneau Printaniere

Remove the fillets from a saddle of lamb, free them from sinews and fat. Make sufficient lamb quenelle forcemeat (No. 92) to fill a border mold indented slightly on the top (Fig. 139), buttered and decorated with truffles; then fill with the forcemeat and lay it in a saucepan with boiling water to reach to half its heighth, place in a slack oven till firm to the touch. Cut up the meat into bias slices, each one weighing about four ounces when pared; salt and fry them in butter over a brisk fire, when done, take them out, wipe and roll in a sautoir with a very little hot meat glaze (No. 402), then dress them at once crown-shaped on the border of poached forcemeat, fill in the center with a garnishing of spring vegetables and pour a little half-glaze sauce (No. 413) to which is added some tomato sauce (No. 549) on the dish and serve some separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A Ranhofer set piece: a ring of poached forcemeat, a crown of seared lamb, and spring vegetables in the middle. The cooking is quick; nearly all the work is in the border, which can be made hours ahead.

The hinge: the forcemeat borderThe mold is set in a water bath — Ranhofer says boiling water reaching halfway up the side — and cooked in a slack oven, somewhere in the region of 300F. Keep the heat gentle: too hot and the forcemeat curdles, weeping fat and liquid. It is done when the top feels firm and springy; allow perhaps 30-40 minutes for a standard ring mold, and rest it a few minutes before unmolding.
"Minion fillets" and the four-ounce slicesFilets mignons here means the muscle taken from a saddle, cut on a strong bias into medallions. An actual lamb tenderloin weighs only two or three ounces whole, so four-ounce trimmed slices point to the boned loin rather than the tenderloin proper. A boned, trimmed double loin gives medallions of about the right size.
Quenelle forcemeatRanhofer's No. 92 is a lamb quenelle forcemeat of the classical type — lean meat worked with panada and butter, bound with egg and passed through a sieve. A modern mousseline made in a food processor is the usual stand-in rather than an exact equivalent: cold lean lamb, egg white, then heavy cream added slowly, seasoned assertively and kept under 50F throughout or it will break.
Buttering and decorating the moldButter the mold generously and chill it, then press thin truffle cutouts against the sides before filling — they set into the surface and show when turned out. Truffle is optional; blanched leek green, black olive or dried mushroom slices read the same way at a fraction of the cost.
Meat glaze and the sauceNo. 402 glaze is stock reduced to a syrup; a commercial demi-glace concentrate or hard-reduced brown stock is the practical stand-in. No. 413 half-glaze is demi-glace, lightened here with tomato sauce — start at about four parts demi-glace to one of tomato and adjust.
Brisk fire, brief cookingMedallions this size need about two minutes a side in foaming butter for a rosy center, 130-135F. Rolling them in hot glaze afterward is a coating step, not more cooking; do it off direct heat and plate immediately or the glaze dulls and the meat overshoots.
Printaniere garnishSpring vegetables turned to uniform size: baby carrots and turnips, peas, green beans, asparagus tips. Cook each separately in salted water, refresh, then reheat together in butter so nothing goes grey or overcooks.
YieldA ring mold of about six cups with eight to ten medallions serves eight as a main course. The border and the vegetable prep can both be done ahead; only the searing and saucing belong to the last ten minutes.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer presided over the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York across two spells spanning some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the restaurant's working repertoire written down at enormous length, with cross-references to numbered base preparations rather than repeated instructions. This dish is pure service-era construction: the meat is fried until done, but the plate depends on a molded forcemeat ring, a decorated interior, a garnish of turned vegetables and two sauces, one on the dish and one in a boat. Printaniere simply marks the spring vegetable garnish, one of the standard classical garnitures codified through the nineteenth century and later fixed in print by Escoffier. The forcemeat border itself, poached in a bain-marie and used as an edible serving vessel, was a staple of the grand-restaurant kitchen and had largely disappeared from professional practice by the middle of the twentieth century, when plated service replaced the platter.