No. 1781

Pork Cutlets with Gravy, Robert or Gherkin Sauce-Breaded

Cotelettes de Porc Panees au Jus, a la Sauce Robert, ou a la Sauce aux Cornichons

Prepare four cutlets with their rib bones beginning at the third rib from the neck; the meat should be white and firm; beat down to flatten to half an inch in thickness, then pare evenly and season with salt and pepper, dip the cutlets in melted butter, then in white bread-crumbs and broil over a slow fire for fifteen minutes; when cooked and nicely browned, trim the handles with frills (No. 10), dress in a circle and pour some clear gravy (No. 404), into the dish.

With Robert Sauce.—Prepare and cook as above and serve with Robert sauce (No. 533).

For Gherkin Sauce.—Pour one gill of vinegar into a saucepan with two chopped up shallots and a pinch of pepper; reduce completely, then add some brown sauce (No. 414), and a little gravy (No. 404), reduce, despumate and just when ready to serve, throw in chopped up pickled gherkins, or else have a pickle sauce as described in No. 518.

← No. 1780 Pork Cutlets with Cooked Fine Herbs Pork No. 1782 Pork Cutlets with Mashed Potatoes—Hashed →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward breaded rib chop, given three finishes. The one thing to change is the timing: fifteen minutes over any fire will take a half-inch pork cutlet well past the point of dryness.

Cooking timeModern pork is leaner and safe at 145F with a short rest, not the 160F-plus the old timing produces. A half-inch chop needs roughly 3 to 4 minutes a side over moderate heat; go by an instant-read thermometer rather than the clock.
"Broil over a slow fire"This means a grill or gridiron over low coals, not a modern overhead broiler. Buttered breadcrumbs scorch quickly under radiant top heat, so a heavy pan or a low grill gives a closer result.
The cutCounting from the third rib from the neck puts you at the blade end of the loin — rib chops with a little more fat and connective tissue than centre-cut. Any bone-in rib chop pounded to half an inch will do.
A gillHalf a cup, so a half cup of vinegar reduced with two chopped shallots until the pan is nearly dry.
DespumateSkim. As the sauce reduces, take off the scum and fat that rise, which is what keeps a brown sauce clear and glossy.
Brown sauce and clear gravyNo. 414 is Ranhofer's brown sauce, an espagnole-type roux-thickened brown stock sauce, and No. 404 his clear gravy, a reduced meat stock. A good demi-glace, loosened with a little unsalted stock, stands in for both.
Robert sauceClassically onions sweated in butter, deglazed with white wine, finished with brown sauce and mustard stirred in off the heat. The mustard must not boil or it turns bitter.
Gherkins at the last momentThe recipe adds them only just before serving; held over heat they soften and lose their crunch.
Frills and yieldThe paper frills of No. 10 are decorative and optional. Four cutlets serve two generously or four as part of a larger menu.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's record of the kitchen he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and its structure explains the cross-references: every sauce is numbered and kept elsewhere, so a cutlet recipe becomes little more than an instruction to fetch No. 533 or No. 414 from the sauce station. That is brigade cooking written down. Sauce Robert is one of the oldest named sauces in French cookery, mentioned by Rabelais in the sixteenth century and traditionally credited to a cook named Robert, though the attribution is legend rather than documented; by Ranhofer's day it had settled into onion, white wine and mustard and was the standard partner for pork. The gherkin sauce belongs to the same family of sharp, vinegar-cut sauces that French practice reserved for fatty meats, and the pickle here is doing the work a spoonful of applesauce does in English and American kitchens.