No. 2173

Venison Cutlets, Deviled

Cotelettes de Chevreuil a la Diable

Coat some cutlets with mustard and immerse them in melted butter; roll in bread-crumbs and broil. Have some shallots fried in butter and moisten them with a light poivrade sauce (No. 522) and game glaze (No. 398), adding mushrooms, lean cooked ham cut in small squares and chopped parsley. Dress the cutlets crown shape, pour the sauce over and decorate the handle bones with frills (No. 10).

← No. 2172 Venison Cutlets a la Financiere Venison & Large Game No. 2174 Venison Cutlets, Tomato Parisian Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a stocked sauce station, so most of this recipe lives in the cross-references. Rebuilt with what a home kitchen has, it is a fast dish: the cutlets take minutes and everything else is the sauce.

The hinge: do not overcookVenison loin chops are almost fatless and turn dry and livery past medium rare. Broil hard and fast, roughly 2-3 minutes a side for a 1-inch cutlet, and pull at 125-130F internal.
What "cutlets" means hereRib chops from the loin, cut single and frenched so the rib bone is scraped clean — that bare bone is what takes the paper frill. Figure two per person.
"A la diable"Deviling covers mustard-and-crumb treatments as well as frankly peppery ones; here Ranhofer specifies only mustard and crumbs, with no cayenne. A sharp smooth mustard suits; the coating is mustard first, then melted butter, then crumbs, which is what makes the crust stick under the broiler.
Poivrade sauce (No. 522)A peppery brown sauce built on mirepoix, vinegar and game trimmings, finished with crushed peppercorns added late so they stay sharp. A good demi-glace let down with red wine vinegar and coarse pepper stands in acceptably.
Game glaze (No. 398)Game stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold — the professional kitchen's flavor concentrate. A tablespoon of reduced beef or veal stock, or a commercial demi-glace concentrate, does the same job of deepening the sauce.
Shallots and garnishCook the shallots in butter without letting them scorch; burnt shallot turns the sauce bitter. The recipe asks only for lean cooked ham, cut in small even dice; add it at the end so it warms rather than stews.
Broiling gearAn overhead broiler at full heat with the rack close, or a very hot ridged grill pan. The butter under the crumbs will smoke, so ventilate and watch it — the crumbs go from gold to black quickly.
Crown shape and frillsStand the cutlets on their edges in a ring, bones outward and interlocking. Ranhofer says to pour the sauce over; if you would rather keep the crusts crisp, pour it inside the ring instead. The paper frills (No. 10) are decorative only.
YieldAs written the recipe is open-ended; eight cutlets with about a cup of finished sauce serves four.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working manual, printed with its cross-referenced sauce numbers intact. Venison had a real place on such menus: American game was still plentiful and commercially hunted in the late nineteenth century, and a large-game chapter of this length would have been unremarkable to his readers, whereas market venison is now farmed almost everywhere. The à la diable treatment — mustard, crumbs, a gridiron and something sharp alongside — is a long-standing French and English handling for meats thought to need waking up, and applying it to venison suggests the cutlets Ranhofer worked with were leaner and stronger-flavored than the mild farmed loin sold today. The paper frill on the bone, numbered like an ingredient in his front matter, is a reminder that in this kitchen presentation was a specified component and not an afterthought.