No. 2323

Lamb Pudding—Minion Fillets a la Gladstone

Pouding de Filets Mignons d'Agneau a la Gladstone

Fry lightly in butter one ounce of chopped onions and shallots, fry separately some yearling lamb minion fillets, then mingle the two together, adding espagnole sauce (No. 414), some Harvey sauce, gravy, salt and pepper. Line a mold (Fig. 151), from which the inside has been removed, with beef suet paste, made as explained in woodcock pudding (No. 2325), fill it up with alternate layers of the meat and minced potatoes; pour the sauce over, moisten the edges of the paste and cover over with a flat of the same paste, lay on a buttered, floured soft towel and tie it all around with a string, then plunge the pudding in boiling water and leave it to cook for two hours; remove the towel, unmold, glaze with meat glaze (No. 402), spread on with a brush and serve.

← No. 2322 Tenderloin of Beef Pudding with Oysters Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2324 Thrush Pudding →

For the Modern Kitchen

A boiled suet-crust pudding in the English manner, dressed up with French sauce work and a Delmonico's name. Everything hangs on the crust staying sealed and the water staying at a bare simmer for the full two hours.

The hinge: a watertight sealThe pudding is cooked by immersion, so any gap in the paste lets water in and the filling turns to soup. Moisten the edges properly, press the lid on firmly, and tie the floured cloth tight around the rim before it goes near the pot.
Water at a simmer, not a boilDespite "plunge in boiling water," hold the pot at 190-200F once the pudding is in. A rolling boil batters the cloth and can force water past the seal. Keep the water level topped up with more boiling water so the mold stays covered throughout.
Minion fillets"Filets mignons d'agneau" here means the small tenderloin strips lying under the lamb's saddle, not a beef cut. The recipe gives no quantity, only "some"; loin, cut into strips, stands in without complaint. "Yearling lamb" means an older, stronger-flavored animal than today's spring lamb.
Beef suet pasteThe recipe sends you to the woodcock pudding (No. 2325) for it; the standard period proportion is roughly twice as much flour as shredded suet, salt, and cold water to a firm dough. Fresh beef suet is a butcher order in most places now; packaged shredded suet works. The paste must be rolled thick enough, about a quarter inch, to survive two hours submerged.
Harvey sauceA commercial Victorian condiment of anchovy, soy, vinegar, garlic and spice, long out of production. Worcestershire is the nearest surviving equivalent; use it sparingly, a teaspoon or two, as the espagnole is already salted.
Espagnole and meat glazeRanhofer's espagnole (No. 414) is a long-simmered brown sauce; a good reduced brown stock thickened lightly with a brown roux is the practical equivalent. The glaze (No. 402) is simply stock reduced to a syrup that sets to a shine when brushed on the unmolded pudding.
The mold"from which the inside has been removed" points to the fitted mold shown in Fig. 151, which is not reproduced here; the exact arrangement is unclear. A plain 1 to 1.5 quart pudding basin, well buttered, serves, covered with pleated parchment and foil rather than a cloth if you prefer.
Potatoes"minced" here means finely chopped; the recipe does not say whether raw or already cooked, though raw potato cut small will cook through in the two hours. Cut it small and even or the layers cook unevenly.
YieldThe recipe gives no number; a 1.5 quart pudding will serve about six as a course. Unmold onto a warm dish and cut at the table.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years cooking at Delmonico's in New York, where his service ran in two stretches from 1862, and this entry shows the house habit of hanging a famous name on a plate. William Ewart Gladstone was four times British prime minister, and a suet pudding boiled in a cloth is a pointedly English thing to put under an English statesman's name, even with espagnole poured through it. Harvey sauce, the bottled anchovy-and-soy condiment that seasons the filling, was a fixture of British tables from the late eighteenth century onward and turns up throughout American hotel cookery of the period; its disappearance is one of the reasons a page like this reads as more foreign now than it did then. The pudding sits in a run of similar entries in the book, between a beef tenderloin pudding with oysters and one made with thrushes, which says a good deal about the range of a New York kitchen catering to men who expected game on the menu.