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Mutton Chops, Maison D'Or
Neatly pare and flatten six tender mutton chops, make an incision crosswise in each, insert therein a slice of truffle, season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Dip in beaten eggs, then roll in bread crumbs, place in a sautoir one beside another, with an ounce clarified butter, and fry for four minutes on each side. Arrange six heart-shaped bread croutons on a hot dish, arrange chops over, place a thin slice of pate de foie gras on top of each, pour a hot Madeira sauce around, adjust a paper frill at end bones of chops and serve.
A grand-restaurant chop, breaded and garnished in the Franco-American style of the 1900s. The hinge is heat control: the crumb coating has to colour before the truffle-slit chop overcooks, so the pan wants to be moderately hot, not smoking.
- Mutton, and what to buy insteadMutton means sheep over a year old, with a stronger, fattier flavour; it is sold in the US mainly by halal and specialty butchers. Lamb rib or loin chops about 3/4 inch thick behave the same way in the pan and are the usual substitute.
- SautoirA straight-sided sauté pan, not a saucepan. Any wide heavy skillet works; what matters is that all six chops sit flat in one layer without touching, or they steam rather than brown.
- One ounce of butter is not enoughAn ounce is two tablespoons, which will be absorbed by the crumbs almost immediately. Plan on 4-6 tablespoons of clarified butter, added in stages, and clarified specifically because whole butter's milk solids scorch and blacken the coating.
- Four minutes a sideReasonable for a 3/4-inch chop over medium-high heat, though eight minutes total will often leave it closer to medium than pink at the bone; check and shorten if you want it rarer. Thicker chops are better finished in a moderate oven (around 375F, a modern figure the recipe does not give) than by frying longer, which only darkens the crust.
- TruffleThe crosswise incision is for a thin slice of black truffle, which perfumes the meat from inside as it cooks. A good jarred truffle or a truffle-butter smear does the same job; most truffle oil is flavoured with synthetic aroma compounds and reads differently.
- Foie grasProduction and sale are restricted in some jurisdictions, including California and parts of Europe. A slice of chicken-liver parfait or mousse gives the same rich, cool contrast against the hot chop.
- Madeira sauceIn this period that means a brown sauce or demi-glace reduced with Madeira, not wine alone. A reduced veal or beef stock with a splash of Sercial or Verdelho, thickened lightly and finished with butter, is the working equivalent.
- Croutons and frillsThe croutons are slices of crustless bread cut heart-shaped and fried in butter, there to keep the chop out of the sauce. Paper frills are decorative sleeves for the trimmed rib bones and are optional.
- YieldSix chops serve three as a main course, or six as a first course. Everything is assembled at the last moment; the sauce and croutons should be ready before the chops go in the pan.
"Maison d'Or" appears to be an anglicization of Maison Doree, the Paris restaurant on the Boulevard des Italiens that was, with the Cafe Anglais and the Cafe de Paris, one of the defining luxury tables of the Second Empire. Restaurant names of this kind were attached loosely to dishes rather than to any single fixed formula; here the garnish is truffle, foie gras and a Madeira-based brown sauce. The combination is late-nineteenth-century restaurant grammar: a modest cut given status by garnish, set up on a fried crouton so the crust stays crisp, and finished with a paper frill for the dining room. Its appearance in a book called The International Cook Book reflects how thoroughly American hotel and club cooking of the 1900s ran on a French repertoire, and how a chop for three could be dressed to look like a plate from a boulevard restaurant.