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Breast of Lamb, with Peas
Braise a breast of lamb in any kind of white broth; when done, take up carefully and remove all the bones, and reserve these for the purpose of making cutlet bones with; put the breast in press between two dishes, and when cold cut them into pieces in the form of a heart, or a cutlet; stick a small bone in at the narrow end and spread a coating of white sauce over them; when cool roll in bread crumbs and then dip in beaten egg, and bread crumb them over again. When about to send to the table fry the cutlets in boiling fat, dish them up, garnish them with stewed peas, pour some glaze around the base and serve.
This is a Victorian épigramme d'agneau in all but name: a cheap, fatty cut braised soft, pressed flat, then cut and fried into something that looks like a chop. The hinge is the pressing — without a long spell under weight the meat will not hold a clean cut or survive the fryer.
- Press it cold, and press it hardAfter boning, lay the breast flat between two dishes or trays with two or three pounds of weight on top and refrigerate overnight. A warm or lightly weighted breast will fall apart when you cut and crumb it.
- White brothAn unbrowned stock — veal, chicken or lamb bones simmered without roasting, so the braise stays pale. Modern low-sodium chicken stock is a fair substitute; the point is colour and mildness, not flavour heroics.
- Braising timeThe original assumes you know. A 2 to 2 1/2 lb breast needs roughly 2 hours at a bare simmer, or 300F covered in the oven, until the rib bones pull out clean.
- "Cutlet bones"The reserved rib bones, scraped clean and dried, are pushed into the narrow end of each cut piece so the finished item reads as a chop. Purely visual; skip it if you like, and warn anyone at the table who does not know the bone is decorative.
- The white sauceA thick béchamel or velouté, reduced until it holds on a spoon, spread on while warm and then chilled until set. A pourable sauce will slide off and the crumbs will not adhere.
- The breading orderAs written, sauce, then crumbs, then egg, then crumbs again. Most modern cooks would go flour or sauce, egg, crumbs; the doubled crumb layer here is deliberate armour for a soft, sauce-coated piece and works, but chill the coated cutlets 30 minutes before frying.
- "Boiling fat"Fat at 350 to 375F. Any hotter and the crumbs colour before the interior warms through; the meat is already cooked, so you are aiming at 3 to 4 minutes to a deep gold.
- GlazeGlace de viande — the braising liquid strained, degreased and reduced to a syrup that coats the spoon. Expect to take a quart down to a few tablespoons. Spoon it around the base, not over the crumbs.
- Peas and yield"Stewed peas" means peas braised with butter, a little stock and often lettuce or a sprig of mint, not boiled and drained. One breast will give perhaps six to eight small cutlets, depending on its size — enough for two or three as a main course.
The trick of boning, pressing and re-cutting a braised breast into chop shapes is old French practice, generally traced to the épigramme of eighteenth-century professional kitchens, where it was usually served alongside genuine cutlets so the plate carried two textures of the same animal. Breast of lamb was among the cheapest parts of the carcass — thin, bony and fat-laced — and this treatment shows restaurant technique adapted for domestic cookery. The whole procedure is a form of respectable thrift: the offcut is disguised, the bones are recycled as handles, the braising liquid becomes the glaze, and nothing at all is thrown away. Peas were a common partner for lamb, and canned peas eventually made the pairing available outside the spring.