No. 1728

Minion Fillets of Lamb with Truffles-Sauted

Filets Mignons d'Agneau Sautes aux Truffes

Suppress the fat and trim neatly two lamb fillets half heart-shape, cut incisions on one side to a third of their depth and season with salt, nutmeg and pepper, stuff with cooked fine herbs (No. 385). and close the opening with a little lamb quenelle forcemeat (No. 92); fry them quickly in butter and when they are stiffened drain off the fat and replace it by a tablespoonful of melted meat glaze (No. 402); roll the fillets in this, dress them on a dish and put a little espagnole sauce (No.414) in with the glaze remaining in the pan, let this cook and reduce, then add a piece of butter and some lemon juice to the sauce. Pour over the fillets range around slices of truffles that have been moistened with Madeira sauce (No. 492).

← No. 1727 Minion Fillets of Lamb with Shallot Sauce an Lamb No. 1729 Neck of Lamb with Cabbage →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stocked sauce station, so half this recipe lives in cross-references. Read it as a technique — stuff, sear, glaze, deglaze — and substitute what your own kitchen can produce.

What the cut is"Minion fillets" (filets mignons) of lamb are the small tenderloins lying under the saddle, trimmed of fat and silverskin and, as Ranhofer directs, trimmed to a half heart-shape. The recipe gives no yield or weights; two small fillets would plausibly make one serving, and trimmed loin medallions are a workable modern stand-in. Lamb tenderloin is not always sold separately, so order ahead or buy a whole saddle.
The numbered referencesNo. 385 is Ranhofer's cooked fine herbs, a mushroom-and-shallot preparation of the duxelles type. No. 92 is his lamb quenelle forcemeat, which in the classical manner would be lean meat pounded with a binder. No. 402 is meat glaze, stock reduced to a syrup. No. 414 is espagnole, and No. 492 a Madeira sauce, which in this repertoire is generally built on espagnole. Check each number in the book before shopping.
Substitutions that hold upA firm mushroom duxelles stands in for the fine herbs. For the forcemeat plug, a spoonful of ground lamb worked smooth with a little egg white and cream will seal the incision as well as a full quenelle mixture. Commercial demi-glace, loosened and finished with Madeira, covers both sauces.
Cutting and stuffingThe incisions go only a third of the way through, on one side, so the fillet stays whole. Season inside the cuts, pack the herbs in, then smear the forcemeat over the opening — it sets on contact with the pan and keeps the stuffing in place.
Doneness"Fry them quickly in butter... when they are stiffened" means seared hard and still pink inside, a couple of minutes a side in a hot pan. Lamb tenderloin at 130–135F is right; pushed further it dries out in minutes because there is no fat left on it.
The glaze stepPouring off the butter before adding the meat glaze is the hinge. Fat left in the pan will not let the glaze cling, and the fillets come out greasy rather than lacquered. Roll them in the glaze off the heat or over a very low flame — meat glaze scorches fast.
Finishing the sauceThe espagnole goes into the same pan to pick up the remaining glaze, reduces briefly, then takes butter and lemon off the heat. Do not let it boil once the butter is in or the emulsion breaks.
TrufflesThe recipe means actual truffle, sliced and warmed in Madeira sauce, rather than truffle oil or paste; fresh black truffle is the ideal, though preserved truffles were also used in kitchens of this period. If you have none, sliced sautéed mushrooms finished in the Madeira sauce give the right ring around the dish without pretending to be truffle.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield, but as written it reads as a single serving. Scale by the pair of fillets per diner and cook in batches so the pan stays hot enough to sear.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in print, complete with the internal cross-references a chef would carry in his head. The dish belongs to the classical French service Ranhofer brought to American tables: a small, expensive cut, a stuffing hidden inside it, a sauce built from stock reduced twice over, and truffles arranged around the rim as the visible mark of cost. The name has since drifted — filet mignon now means a beef cut almost everywhere in English — but in Ranhofer's usage it simply meant a small trimmed fillet of any animal, shaped and served as an individual portion. That the recipe assumes espagnole, Madeira sauce, meat glaze and quenelle forcemeat all standing ready says more about the period's kitchen organisation than any single instruction: these were the mother preparations from which a hundred numbered dishes were assembled to order.