No. 2475

Cutlets of Lamb with Tomatoed Chaudfroid

Cotelettes d'Agneau au Chaudfroid Tomate

Fry in butter a dozen fine short-handled spring-lamb cutlets; put some blond chaudfroid sauce (No. 596) into a saucepan and mix in with it a few spoonfuls of tomato puree (No. 730), so that it acquires a light red tint; thicken it by putting the saucepan on ice and moving constantly with a spoon, and when thick dip the cutlets in so as to have them well covered. Range them at once on a baking sheet slightly apart, but all on the same side, and allow the same to harden in a cool place; detach them, pare and decorate the kernels with a rosette formed of pickled gherkin and truffles dipped into half-set jelly; cover the whole with a coating of jelly, cool, then dress in a circle on a dish, having the handle bones under and the kernels on top; fill the center with chopped jelly.

← No. 2474 Cutlets of Lambs' Kernels with Mayonnaise The Cold Service No. 2476 Cutlets of Lobster a la Lowery →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A cold buffet piece from Delmonico's kitchen: fried lamb chops masked in a tomato-tinted chaudfroid, decorated, glazed with aspic and dressed in a crown. Nothing here is difficult, but the whole thing turns on temperature control, so read the sauce note first.

The hinge: sauce at coating pointChaudfroid must be used in the narrow window where it is thick enough to cling but still fluid enough to run smooth — the classic nappe, when it coats a spoon and a drawn finger leaves a clean line. Stirring the pan over ice as directed brings it there; if it sets too far, warm it very gently and cool it again rather than thinning it with liquid.
What blond chaudfroid isBlond chaudfroid in this tradition is a velouté-type sauce set with aspic gelatin — essentially a white sauce that firms when cold; Ranhofer's No. 596 is not reproduced here. Any modern equivalent is a strong veal or chicken velouté with enough bloomed gelatin to set softly, then strained through a fine chinois. Strain it again after adding the tomato purée or the coating will be speckled.
"Kernels" and "short-handled cutlets"The kernel is the noix, the round eye of meat on the rib chop. Short-handled means French-trimmed with the rib bone cut down to a couple of inches, so the chops sit neatly in a ring. Ask for a rack of lamb, frenched, cut into single chops.
Cook the chops, then chill them hardFry to medium — pink, not rare, since the meat is eaten cold and very rare lamb reads unpleasantly raw at fridge temperature. Press the cooked chops flat between two trays as they cool, blot every trace of fat, and refrigerate until thoroughly cold. Sauce will slide straight off a warm or greasy cutlet.
Aspic for the glaze"Half-set jelly" and the final coating are clarified meat aspic. A modern cook can use a strong, well-clarified stock set with gelatin; it should be firm enough to hold at room temperature for the time the platter is on the table but not rubbery. Apply the finishing coat in two or three thin layers, chilling between each, rather than one thick flood.
DecoratingThe rosette is cut from pickled gherkin and black truffle, the pieces dipped in tacky aspic and laid on the set chaudfroid with the point of a knife or a pin. Blanched leek green and cooked egg white do the same job at a fraction of the truffle price.
Keep it coldThis is a dish that lives in the refrigerator and comes out at the last moment. Cooked meat under a sauce like this should not sit out for more than about two hours; a chilled platter or a bed of crushed ice under the serving dish is worth the trouble.
YieldTwelve cutlets, dressed in a circle with chopped aspic in the middle, serve six as a cold entrée or eight on a larger buffet.

A Little History

Chaudfroid — literally "hot-cold" — is the technique of masking cooked meat, poultry or fish in a sauce that is made hot and eaten cold, and it was the backbone of nineteenth-century cold buffet cookery, from Carême's set pieces to the ambigu suppers of the Gilded Age. The name is traditionally traced to an anecdote about a fricassee served cold at the table of the Maréchal de Luxembourg, though the story is repeated far more often than it is documented. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, gives dozens of these in The Epicurean (1894): the cold service was where a kitchen displayed its aspic work, and where a ball supper or a summer collation for several hundred people could be built in advance. Tinting a blond chaudfroid with tomato purée was one way of getting a pale coral coat without artificial colour, and the crown arrangement — bones down, glazed kernels up, chopped jelly glittering in the center — is pure display cooking, meant to be seen from across a long table before anyone touched it.