No. 2472

Cutlets of Lambs' Kernels in Bellevue

Cotelettes de Noix d'Agneau en Bellevue

Pare and saute twelve lamb cutlets; place them under a light weight and cut away the kernels; cover these with a brown chaudfroid sauce (No. 594). Decorate an aspic mold and fill it with layers of the kernels and jelly alternated and leave for two hours on ice; then unmold, dress on a dish bottom an inch and a half thick and one inch in diameter larger than the aspic and surround with chopped jelly and jelly croutons. Place a large Bellevue hatelet (No. 2526) in the center.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A cold buffet piece from Ranhofer's Delmonico's repertoire, written as shorthand for cooks who already knew the house's aspic and chaudfroid formulas. The whole thing hinges on jelly that is firm enough to slice but still tastes of meat, and on chilling each layer before the next goes on.

"Kernels" means the eye of the chopNoix d'agneau is the round nut of lean meat from a rib or loin cutlet, cut free of bone, fat and connective tissue after cooking. Twelve cutlets yield twelve small medallions; the recipe itself gives no number of servings.
Under a light weightThe sauteed cutlets are pressed while cooling so the meat sets flat and dense; uneven medallions will not stack in a mold or hold a smooth coat. A tray with a couple of cans on it is enough — heavy pressing squeezes out juices.
Brown chaudfroid sauceRanhofer's No. 594 is his brown chaudfroid: a brown sauce carrying enough jelly to set on the meat. It must be coated on at the point where it ribbons off the spoon and just clings; too warm and it slides off, too cool and it goes lumpy. Coat the chilled medallions on a rack and refrigerate between coats.
Aspic and its strengthNineteenth-century kitchens made jelly from calf's foot and gelatinous stock, clarified with egg white and lightly flavored with Madeira or sherry. If you use powdered gelatin, aim for a jelly firm enough to unmold cleanly but not rubbery — roughly 1 tablespoon (9–10 g, or a little over one 7 g envelope) per 2 cups of well-flavored stock, adjusted with a chilled spoonful as a test before you commit.
"Decorate an aspic mold"Set a thin film of jelly in the chilled mold first, lay the decoration (truffle, blanched vegetable, hard egg white) face down into it, then fix it with another thin film. Only then do the meat and jelly layers go in, each layer set before the next is poured.
Two hours on iceOn a bed of ice in the old larder this was about right; in a modern refrigerator at 40F allow four hours or overnight, since the cabinet is warmer than crushed ice. Unmold by dipping the mold in warm water for a few seconds and inverting onto a cold plate.
The dish bottomThis is a socle — a base an inch and a half deep and an inch wider in diameter than the aspic, cut from set jelly or from a stiff paste for a display piece, so the mold sits raised above the platter. It is structural and decorative, not something anyone was expected to eat with relish.
HateletA hatelet or attelet is an ornamental silver skewer threaded with truffle, crayfish or glazed vegetables and stood upright in the centerpiece. It is pure garnish; the dish is complete without one.
Serving temperatureAspic dishes were the mainstay of the cold buffet but they are cooked meat in a moist jelly. Keep it refrigerated until service and return leftovers promptly rather than letting it stand out through a long meal.

A Little History

Bellevue in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage meant a cold dish set in or coated with clear aspic so that the contents show handsomely through the jelly — literally a "fine view." Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, filled the cold service chapters of The Epicurean (1894) with dishes of this type because the grand American banquet of the period ran on molded, glazed, mirror-bright cold pieces that could be built a day ahead and carried whole to the buffet. Chaud-froid sauce — a brown or white sauce loaded with enough jelly to set on the meat — is generally traced to early nineteenth-century French practice, and it exists for exactly this purpose: it gives a piece of cooked meat an even, opaque, sliceable coat that will take decoration. The elaborate socle and the silver hatelet mark this as a display dish first, from a period when the kitchen was judged partly on the architecture it could put on a platter.