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Lamb, Breast of, Broiled
Trim a breast of lamb, and put it into a stewpan with as much stock as will just cover it. Add a bunch of sweet herbs and an onion stuck with one or two cloves, and let it simmer very gently until it is sufficiently tender to remove the bones, then take these out. Sprinkle a little pepper and salt over the meat, brush it over twice with egg and bread-crumbs, to which, if liked, a little chopped parsley can be added, or a tea-spoonful of powdered herbs, and broil it over a clear fire. When it is brightly browned on one side, turn it carefully to brown the other; serve on a hot dish, and send the following sauce to table in a tureen. Put two ounces of loaf sugar and a quarter of a pint of vinegar into a saucepan, let them simmer until the sugar is dissolved, then add a pinch of cayenne, and a wine-glassful of claret. Simmer a quarter of an hour, and serve hot. Time, about an hour and a half to simmer the lamb: it should be broiled until brightly browned on both sides. Sufficient for three or four persons. Probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound.
A two-stage treatment of a cheap, fatty cut: braise until the bones pull free, then crumb and grill. The braising liquid is not used in the sauce, so keep it for soup.
- Press the meat before crumbingThe recipe does not mention it, but once the bones are out it helps to lay the breast flat between two trays with a weight on top and chill it until firm before coating. A hot, slack boned breast is awkward to egg-and-crumb and to turn on a grill.
- "Broil" means grillIn a British book of this date broiling is cooking over a clear coal fire, not the American sense. An overhead grill or a hot ridged pan gives the same result; the coating needs high, dry heat for a few minutes a side, not a long roast.
- Imperial liquid measuresA quarter of a pint here is 5 fl oz, a scant 2/3 US cup. A wine-glassful is conventionally about 2 fl oz. No stock quantity is given: it is judged by the pan, just enough to cover the breast.
- Loaf sugarCone or block sugar broken up for use, and simply refined white sugar. Two ounces of granulated is a direct swap, a scant 1/3 cup.
- The sauce is a sweet-sour reductionSugar, vinegar, cayenne and claret simmered fifteen minutes reduce to a sharp, thin syrup, closer to an agrodolce than to a modern gravy. It is meant to cut the fat of the breast, so do not thicken it or sweeten it further.
- Simmering timeAn hour and a half is right for a whole breast, though modern lamb is often younger and smaller; test by pulling at a rib bone rather than by the clock. The bones should slide out clean with no meat clinging.
- Coating twiceEgg and crumb, let it set, then repeat. The double layer is what browns brightly and keeps the rendered fat from soaking straight through.
- YieldThree or four as written. A breast of lamb is very fatty for its weight, so allow for considerable shrinkage during braising.
Breast of lamb was among the cheapest cuts on a Victorian butcher's block, and a price note of sixpence to eightpence a pound puts it well below the leg or loin. The method here is a familiar nineteenth-century rescue for cheap fatty meat: long moist cooking to render and tenderise, boning to make it manageable, then a crumb crust and fierce heat to give it the browned surface a joint would have had. A related dish, epigrammes, took the same boned and pressed breast, cut it into neat shapes, and crumbed and grilled it. The accompanying sauce belongs to an older English taste for sweet-sharp condiments with mutton and lamb, the same instinct that survives in mint sauce, which is likewise sugar and vinegar; claret and cayenne simply dress it for a dinner table.