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Ribs of Lamb, Puree of Cauliflower
Neatly trim off the fat and red skin on a tender rib of lamb; remove also the small spinal bone. Season it all over with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Lay it on a tin with a mirepoix arrange a thin slice larding pork on the surface and pour half gill water into the pan. Set in the oven to roast for forty minutes, turning once in a while and basting with its own drippings. Remove, arrange on a large dish, skim the fat from the gravy in the pan, then place the vegetables in a small saucepan, add one and a half gills demi-glace and boil for ten minutes. Arrange in pyramid form a puree of cauliflower on one side of the rib, strain the sauce around the dish and serve.
This is a professional kitchen's shorthand for roast rack of lamb, written for cooks who already had stock, demi-glace and a mirepoix on hand. Two things the original leaves out are the oven temperature and the yield.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because coal ranges were judged by hand and by eye. Forty minutes for a trimmed rack points to a hot oven, roughly 425F; an instant-read thermometer at 130-135F in the centre of the eye is a more reliable guide than the clock.
- GillsA gill is half a cup. The half gill of water in the pan is 1/4 cup, and the gill and a half of demi-glace is 3/4 cup.
- MirepoixHere it means the classic bed of diced carrot, onion and celery, cut coarse, laid under the meat to catch the drippings and later boiled into the sauce. It is a flavouring, not a garnish, and gets strained out at the end.
- Larding porkA thin sheet of fresh pork fatback, sometimes called a bard. Ask a butcher for barding fat, or use unsmoked fatback; a slice of pancetta or thin salt pork works but will push the dish saltier, so pull back on the teaspoon of salt.
- The spinal boneThe chine, the strip of backbone along the base of the ribs. A butcher will remove or saw through it on request, which makes carving down between the ribs much easier.
- Demi-glaceIn this period it meant sauce espagnole reduced with brown veal stock to a glossy, lightly thickened sauce, a standing preparation in any professional kitchen. Good jarred or frozen demi-glace is the practical substitute; a reduced, well-flavoured beef or veal stock will do, though it will be thinner in body.
- Cauliflower pureeThe recipe assumes a separate preparation, boiled cauliflower pressed through a sieve and bound with butter and a little cream or bechamel so it holds the pyramid shape. A loose modern puree will slump on the platter.
- Resting and yieldLet the rack stand ten minutes before carving while the vegetables and demi-glace boil down. The recipe does not say how large a rib to buy; a trimmed rack of about eight ribs will serve two to three.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when American hotel and restaurant cooking was conducted almost entirely in French, and this entry shows the grammar of that kitchen in miniature: a mirepoix under the roast, the pan juices lifted with demi-glace, a vegetable puree moulded into a pyramid, the sauce strained around rather than over the meat so the crust stays dry. The book is generally credited to Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York, and its recipes read as memoranda for a cook who has already been trained rather than instructions for a beginner. Barding a lean rack with a sheet of pork fat was standard practice: the fat covering both basted the meat and protected the exposed eye during a hard roasting. The editorial note at the head of the page is a reminder that these books were products of their moment in more than their cookery.