No. 1748

Shoulder of Lamb a la Benton

Epaule d'Agneau a la Benton

Bone a shoulder of lamb retaining the end or the handle bone; saw off the knuckle an inch from the handle and season the meat with salt, pepper and nutmeg, roll it into an elongated shape, tie it round with six rows of string making a knot at each row. Fry the shoulder lightly in a saucepan containing butter and melted fat pork and when lightly browned, drain off the butter and moisten to three-quarters of an inch of its height with stock (No. 194a), add a bunch of parsley garnished with bay leaf, as much thyme and a clove of garlic, boil and skim, then cook in a slow oven for about two hours, basting the meat frequently with its own broth. Twenty minutes before serving, put in four ounces of minced onions fried to a light color in butter and finish to cook and glaze the shoulder. Have two pounds of medium-sized, peeled, quartered and cored apples, range them on a buttered sauteing pan, pour over a little butter and sprinkle with sugar, then cook them in a slack oven. Prepare and fry two pounds of potatoes cut in cylinders one inch in circumference, and cut across three-sixteenths of an inch thick; soak them in cold water for an hour, then drain, wipe and fry in white frying lard until they assume a nice color, then salt over. Drain the shoulder, lay it in the center of a dish and glaze it over; strain and skim the fat from the stock, reduce it to the consistency of a light syrup and pour a little of it in the bottom of the dish; set the apples at both ends and arrange the fried potatoes at the sides; serve the reduced gravy at the same time, but separately.

← No. 1747 Slices of Saddle of Lamb with Puree of Beans Lamb No. 1749 Shoulder of Lamb, a la Dessaix →

For the Modern Kitchen

A braised, rolled shoulder finished with glaze, buttered apples and fried potatoes. The hinge is the liquid level: the stock comes only three-quarters of an inch up the meat, so the shoulder braises below and roasts above, which is what lets it glaze at the end.

Slow and slack ovensThe book gives no figures. A slow oven is usually read as somewhere around 300F, and a slack oven cooler still. Either way it should be gentle enough that the braising liquid barely trembles and the apples soften without collapsing.
Stock No. 194aA cross-reference to one of Ranhofer's basic stocks. A good unsalted beef or veal stock stands in; avoid anything heavily salted, since the liquid is reduced to a syrup at the end and will concentrate.
Melted fat porkRendered fat from fresh or blanched salt pork. Any clean pork fat or lard does the job; the point is a fat that will not scorch as fast as the butter it is mixed with.
Boning and tyingLeave the shank bone in as a handle, as the recipe directs, and tie six separate loops rather than one spiral, which is what "a knot at each row" implies. The recipe names no weight; two hours of gentle braising should be enough to take the shoulder to the point where the connective tissue has given way.
Potato dimensions"One inch in circumference" may be loose phrasing for one inch across; a true one-inch circumference would give coins about the width of a pencil. Cut cylinders about an inch in diameter, sliced the three-sixteenths of an inch the recipe specifies.
White frying lardRefined, bland lard. Any neutral fat at 340-360F will fry the soaked and dried potato coins; salt them the moment they leave the pan, as directed.
The onionsFour ounces of onion fried pale in butter go in only twenty minutes before serving, so they stay distinct in the sauce. Added at the start they would dissolve and muddy the glaze.
Finishing the sauceStrain, skim thoroughly and reduce to a light syrup. Skimming matters more than reducing here: unskimmed braising liquid turns greasy the instant it is concentrated.
YieldThe recipe gives no number of servings. The garnish is fixed at two pounds of apples and two pounds of potatoes, and nothing else is called for.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous codification of the cooking he oversaw for decades at Delmonico's in New York. Ranhofer rarely explains where such names come from; the "a la Benton" tag is best read as a house label attached to a particular garnish, in this case apples and fried potato coins. The technique itself is plain French braising of a cheap cut: a boned shoulder rolled and tied behaves like a small poeled joint, moistened only part way so it takes on colour and glaze while cooking through. Here the apples do the work that a sharp jelly would do at an English table, cutting the fat of the shoulder and the frying lard alike.