461. Cutlets à la Victime, or Victimized Cutlets.—Here, ma belle amie, is a terrific title for a receipt but do not fear it, as the time of the Inquisition is past, and you are not likely to become one in partaking of it. I do not recommend it to you on the score of economy, as it is the tip-top of extravagance; but forward it as a curiosity, and also in case similar circumstances should happen which caused its invention, which, you must know, was done by a culinary artist of Louis XVIII. of France, at the palace of the Tuileries, and first partaken of by this intellectual monarch and gourmet, who, at the end of his stormy reign, through a serious illness, was completely paralyzed, and, at the same time, the functionary organs of digestion were much out of order; being also a man of great corpulence, and a great admirer of the festive board, much food was required to satisfy his royal appetite; and the difficulty which his physicians experienced was to supply his want of food in the smallest compass. The head-cook, on being consulted, begged a few hours’ reflection before he could give an answer to so important a question, as nothing but mutton entirely deprived of fat was to compose his Majesty’s meal. After profound study by the chief and his satellites, a voice was heard from the larder, which was a considerable distance from the kitchen, crying, “I have found it, I have found it.” It was a young man of the name of Alphonse Pottier, who, in saying so, made his appearance in the kitchen with three beautiful mutton cutlets, tastefully trimmed and tied together; he then, with a small skewer, fastened them to a spit, and placed them, to the astonishment of all present, close to the bars of the grate: two of the cutlets soon got brown (observe, not a word was to be said until the trial was made), from brown they soon turned black: every one gazed at each other in astonishment whilst Pottier, with quite a composed countenance, terminated his scientific experiment, took them off the spit, drew the skewer out, cut the string, threw the two burnt cutlets away, and merely served the middle one, which seems to have received all the nutriment of the other two; it was served and greatly approved of by the physicians, as well as by the gourmet potentate, who in consequence of two being sacrificed for one, named it ‘Cutlet à la Victime,’ and often afterwards used to partake of them when in the enjoyment of health.
Cut three cutlets from the neck of mutton, about half an inch thick, trim one very nicely, free from fat, leave the other two as cut off, put the trimmed one between the two, flatten them together, so that the fat of the outside ones meet over the middle one; tie them together thus, and broil over a very strong fire for ten minutes; remove it from the fire, cut the string, and dish up the middle one only on a very hot dish, with a little salt sprinkled over it. If wanted roasted, proceed as above.