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Lamb, Breast of, and Peas
Remove the skin from a breast of lamb, cut away part of the fat, and divide into neat pieces. Dredge a little flour over these, put them into a stewpan with an ounce of fresh butter, and let them remain until they are lightly browned on both sides, then pour over them as much warm water as will cover them; add a bunch of parsley and a small onion, and simmer gently until the meat is three-parts cooked. Skim off the fat, take out the onion and parsley, and mince the latter finely. Return the parsley to the gravy with a pint and a half of green peas. Add a little pepper and salt, and simmer again until the peas are tender. Place the meat on a hot dish, pour the gravy and peas over it, and serve as hot as possible. Time, an hour and a half. Probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A plain braise of a cheap cut, and it still works — but breast of lamb is fatty enough that the fat-handling is the whole difference between a good dish and a greasy one, and the peas need a fraction of the time the original implies.
- The cutBreast of lamb is the belly, laid over the rib ends: fatty, sinewy, and cheap. Ask a butcher for it bone-in and cut between the ribs into riblets, or buy it boned and rolled and cut into strips. Two to two and a half pounds feeds three or four as written.
- Skimming is the hingeBreast renders a great deal of fat, and the instruction to skim before the peas go in is not optional. If you have time, cook the meat a day ahead, chill the pan, and lift the solid cap off; peas simmered in a slick of lamb fat are unpleasant.
- StewpanA heavy lidded saucepan or small Dutch oven, wide enough to hold the pieces in one layer. Simmer means bare movement on the surface, not a boil, or the breast tightens before the connective tissue gives.
- A pint and a half of peasA dry volume measure of shelled peas — roughly three to three and a half cups, close to a pound. Peas of the period may well have been starchier than modern varieties and could take fifteen minutes. Modern shelled fresh peas want five to eight; frozen peas want three, stirred in at the very end.
- "Three-parts cooked"About an hour of gentle simmering for bone-in breast, until the meat yields to a fork but is not falling from the bone. It finishes while the peas cook.
- The parsleySimmering a bunch whole, fishing it out, mincing it and returning it is a period way of getting both the infused flavour and the green flecks. Boiled parsley is drab; a handful of fresh chopped parsley added at the end alongside the cooked gives a better colour.
- Seasoning and bodyThe dredged flour thickens the liquor only lightly. The recipe seasons before the peas go in, but it is worth tasting again at the end — plain water and no stock means the dish leans entirely on the lamb, and it usually wants more salt than expected.
- Cost note"6d. to 8d. per pound" is sixpence to eightpence, a mark of how cheaply breast sold. It remains one of the least expensive lamb cuts.
Cassell's was written for cooks buying by the pound and watching the price, which is why breast — the fattiest and cheapest part of the animal — gets its own entries alongside the loin and saddle. Lamb with green peas is a spring pairing of long standing in English cooking: both arrived together in the market year, and the sweetness of new peas was held to answer the richness of the meat. The method here is the standard brown stew of the period — flour the meat, colour it in butter, cover with water rather than stock, and let the meat make its own gravy — a technique that assumes no stockpot on hand and no ingredient wasted, including the parsley, which is simmered for flavour and then chopped back in for colour.