No. 1735

Rack of Lamb with Puree of Split Peas-Larded and Roasted

Carre--d'Agneau Pique et Roti a la Puree de Pois Secs

Select a good tender rack of lamb; suppress the chine bone, cut the rib bones short and straight and pare the fillet meats without taking any from the ribs; lard the meat lengthwise with medium sized lardons (No. 3, Fig. 52), then wrap the rack in a sheet of oiled paper and attach it on the spit fastening it with a skewer; let it roast for twenty or thirty-five minutes while basting frequently; a few moments before serving unwrap to brown it nicely, then salt it over, withdraw the skewers and serve with a little clear gravy (No. 404) poured over, and some more in a sauce-boat to be served at the same time. The above dish is to be served with a garnishing of puree of split peas (No. 724) in a vegetable dish.

← No. 1734 Rack of Lamb with Artichokes—Sauted Lamb No. 1736 Double or Saddle of Lamb with the Legs and P →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a spit, a larding needle, and a kitchen where the stock pot is always going. The dish translates cleanly to an oven, provided you treat the timing as a temperature target rather than a clock reading.

The hinge: it is a short roast at high heatA larded, paper-wrapped rack in front of a fire cooked fast; in an oven, use 425F and pull the meat at 125-130F internal for rare to medium-rare. Twenty to thirty-five minutes is realistic for a 1 1/2-2 lb rack, but the thermometer decides.
Suppress the chine boneThis means removing the backbone section so the rack carves into single chops. Ask the butcher to do it and to French the rib bones, which is what "cut the rib bones short and straight" describes.
LardingLardons here are strips of firm pork back fat threaded through the meat lengthwise with a larding needle. The technique adds fat to a lean cut; if you skip the larding, leave the fat cap on and score it, or tie a thin sheet of fatback or caul over the top.
Oiled paperThe nineteenth-century wrapper of choice, used to shield the fat and the exposed bone tips from direct fire. Parchment does the same job in an oven, and the final unwrapping to brown corresponds to finishing uncovered for the last few moments, as the recipe says.
The cross-referencesNo. 404 is Ranhofer's clear gravy, which the name implies is unthickened rather than a flour gravy; a few spoonfuls of good lamb or veal stock reduced with the pan deglazings stands in for it. No. 724 is his puree of dried split peas, given in a separate numbered recipe.
SkewersThe skewer fastened the rack to the spit and is withdrawn before serving. In an oven, string ties are enough; remove them before carving.
Rest before carvingThe original says nothing about it. Give it ten minutes loosely covered or the juices run out into the pea puree.
YieldA single rack of seven or eight ribs serves two, at most three, as a main course. The pea puree goes in a separate vegetable dish, in service style, not underneath the meat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is essentially French professional practice recorded for an American kitchen: numbered recipes that cross-reference each other, so a single dish is assembled from a roast, a gravy and a garnish written elsewhere. Larding was a standard treatment for lean roasts. Ranhofer here specifies a spit before the fire and instructs that the rack be wrapped in oiled paper and unwrapped at the last moment to brown, a fire-cooking technique; closed range ovens were also in use by this date, and the book's reliance on the spit for this dish should not be taken as proof that ovens were merely a substitute.