No. 1768

Lambs' Trotters a la Poulette and a la Didier

Pieds d'Agneau a la Poulette et a la Didier

Singe with alcohol about two dozen well cleaned lambs' trotters, cook them in white stock (No. 182); suppress the hairy tuft found between the two divisions of the forked hoofs; shorten the bones of these hoofs and then split each foot in two lengthwise, and take out the large shank bone. Put some flour into a saucepan, dilute it with cold water and add salt, whole peppers, vinegar, and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf; moisten with more water then put in the feet either singly or else three bunched firmly together; boil, skim, and continue the boiling slowly for five or six hours either on the corner of the range or else in a slack oven. Drain the feet and place them in a flat saucepan with mushrooms and veloute sauce (No. 415); season, boil, and thicken with egg-yolks, cream, fresh butter, lemon juice, and chopped parsley.

A la Didier.—Prepare and cook twenty-four feet as indicated for the above. Fry two tablespoonfuls of chopped onions in butter; when a light golden color, besprinkle with flour, and allow it to cook a few moments without browning; dilute this with some stock (No. 194a), adding a bunch of parsley and some mushroom parings; after it has cooked some time, skim off the fat and run the sauce through a sieve, then add to it the feet and some turned and channeled mushroom heads (No. 118); thicken with egg-yolks and fresh butter, and finish with strained lemon juice, and chopped parsley; serve very hot.

← No. 1767 Lambs' Trotters a la Chantilly Lamb No. 1769 Lambs' Trotters with Tarragon Gravy—Stuffed →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder and a coal range, and he cross-references two other numbered recipes for the stock and sauce. The essential technique is the blanc — a flour-and-water cooking bath that keeps pale offal white and tender through a very long simmer.

The hinge: the egg-yolk liaisonOnce the yolks, cream and butter go in, the sauce must not boil or it will curdle and break. Take the pan off the heat, temper the yolks with a ladle of the hot sauce, return it and hold the pan just below a simmer until it coats the spoon.
"Singe with alcohol"This means burning off the remaining hair by pouring spirit over the feet and lighting it, the kitchen equivalent of a blowtorch. A gas flame or a small torch does the same job, and the feet should then be scrubbed under running water.
Two cooking liquids, in sequenceThe feet are first cooked in white stock (No. 182), which appears to serve as a preliminary setting stage; the long five- to six-hour cooking happens in the flour-and-water blanc described immediately after. Whisk the flour into cold water before heating or it will lump.
"A slack oven"A low oven, roughly 250-300F, low enough that the liquid barely trembles. On a modern hob, the lowest setting with the lid ajar does the same, and a heavy pot or a low oven is more reliable than a burner for six hours.
Bunching the feetTying three trotters together with kitchen string keeps them from knocking apart during the long cook and makes them easier to lift out whole. It is worth doing, since fully cooked trotters are gelatinous and fragile.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux thinned with veal or chicken stock and simmered until it is silky — not a béchamel, and not made with milk.
SourcingLambs' trotters are a butcher's order in most places now, and they usually arrive already scalded. Ask for them split or plan to do it yourself with a heavy knife along the natural seam.
YieldTwo dozen feet, split, is a banquet quantity — roughly eight to twelve portions as a course. The recipe scales down cleanly; keep the ratio of sauce to trotters rather than the absolute amounts.
À la DidierThe difference is the base: a pale onion roux thinned with stock and strained, instead of ready-made velouté, and no cream in the finish. It is the simpler of the two and better suited to a home kitchen.

A Little History

Trotters were a staple of nineteenth-century cookery because they were cheap and full of gelatin, which gave sauces the body that modern cooks buy in a carton; a dish like this turned the least valuable part of the animal into a course fit for Delmonico's, where Charles Ranhofer was chef when he compiled The Epicurean in 1894. The poulette treatment — velouté finished with cream and lemon — was applied indiscriminately to trotters, tripe, mussels and chicken; the name is often said to derive from the sauce's association with poultry, though that is tradition rather than established fact. À la Didier is one of the many personal names scattered through Ranhofer's book, and the text does not explain it. The long slow cook in a blanc survives today mainly in tripe and calf's-head cookery, where whiteness is still prized.