No. 2425

Ballotines of Lamb Cupola Shaped

Ballotines d'Agneau en Forme de Coupole

Bone two shoulders of spring lamb, remove all fat and sinews and fill them with a stuffing made with half a pound of veal, half a pound of fresh fat pork and a quarter of a pound of cooked and finely chopped ham; season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, chopped parsley and chives; mix into it some truffles, pistachios and cooked tongue, all cut into three-sixteenths of an inch dice pieces. Spread the shoulders on the table, season and put in the dressing; sew up to enclose it well, giving each a round form, then braise with very little moistening, putting them into a saucepan lined with bards of fat pork and wetting with white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419). When well done place them in oval cupola-shaped molds and let cool off under a weight; remove, wash the molds well and decorate with fanciful cuts of truffles, pistachios and tongue dipped in half-set jelly; coat the inside of the mold with a layer of white chaudfroid, return the meats as before and finish filling with jelly. Unmold when thoroughly cold and dress on long dishes on a socle of rice two inches high, the size of the cupola. Have prepared some red lambs' tongues, salted, blanched and braised for two hours in a white wine mirepoix stock (No. 419) the same as the shoulders; drain, skin and set under a weight; strain their stock over and when very cold pare them all of uniform size and oval-shaped; the size is three inches long by two wide and a quarter of an inch thick; glaze and dress around the lamb cupolas, one overlapping the other. Garnish around the dish with chopped jelly and croutons and lay some croustades filled with a macedoine of vegetables (No. 2650) mingled with a little mayonnaise (No. 606). Stick Bellevue hatelets (No. 2526) on top of each cupola.

← No. 2424 Voliere Galantine of Pheasant a la Waddingto The Cold Service No. 2426 Ballotines of Quail a la Tivolier →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full pièce montée from Delmonico's cold buffet: two boned lamb shoulders stuffed, braised, pressed into dome molds, jacketed in chaudfroid and aspic, and set on a rice plinth. Ranhofer assumes you have his numbered stocks and sauces on hand, so the cross-references are where most of the real work hides.

The hinge: press while warm, decorate coldThe shoulders must go into the molds straight from the braise and cool under a weight, so the gelatin in the braising liquid sets them into a sliceable mass. If they cool loose, the ballotines will not hold a dome shape and no amount of aspic will rescue them.
What the numbered recipes areNo. 419 is Ranhofer's mirepoix stock moistened with white wine; the recipe here calls for it twice, and the ingredient list should be taken from his page rather than assumed. No. 606 is his mayonnaise, No. 2650 a macedoine of vegetables. No. 2526, Bellevue hatelets, are decorative skewers, purely ornamental and safely omitted.
Bards of fat porkThin sheets of pork back fat used to line the pan and keep the meat from catching, usually fresh fatback though salt pork was also used. Sheets of fatback from a butcher do the same job; blanch salt pork first if it is aggressively salty.
Braising temperature and time"Very little moistening" means only enough liquid to keep the pan from drying, so the meat cooks largely in steam rather than boiling. Ranhofer gives neither a temperature nor a time; two boned shoulders in a covered pan in a low oven will need a good while to reach fork-tenderness, and should be judged by feel.
ChaudfroidA veloute or bechamel-based white sauce set with gelatin, spread at the point where it coats a spoon but has not yet gelled. Work over ice and stop the moment it thickens.
The decorated moldTruffle, pistachio and tongue cuts are dipped in half-set jelly and pressed to the chilled mold in reverse, so the pattern shows through when unmolded. Chill the mold thoroughly first or the decorations slide.
Red lambs' tonguesThe red comes from a salt cure, saltpetre in period practice, not from the braise. The recipe simply assumes the tongues are already salted; buy cured tongue rather than improvising a cure, since no quantities or timings for one are given here. Two hours of braising is what the recipe specifies, and the skin peels off most easily while they are hot.
The socleA base of cooked, compacted rice two inches high, cut to the footprint of the dome. It is a serving pedestal in the 19th-century buffet manner and was not eaten; a chilled platter serves the same purpose now.
YieldTwo lamb shoulders plus a pound and a quarter of forcemeat make two domes, intended as one item among many on a cold table, so portions are small. The whole assembly holds for a day or two refrigerated, well covered, and should be sliced cold.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the cold service section is the clearest record of what an American luxury buffet looked like at its height. A ballotine is a boned joint stuffed and re-formed into a bundle — the word is generally traced to balle, a pack or bale — and it differs from a galantine mainly in being braised in its own shape rather than poached in cloth. The cupola form, the chaudfroid coating, the truffle-and-pistachio inlay and the ornamental hatelets all belong to the tradition of decorated cold work codified by Carême earlier in the century, in which a dish was built to be looked at down the length of a buffet table before anyone cut into it. The pressing under weight is the practical heart of the thing: without reliable refrigeration, a cold centerpiece had to be dense enough to hold its shape through a long service in a warm dining room, and a gelatin jacket sealed the cut surfaces against air.