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Lamb, Breast of, Collared
Take a fine breast of lamb, remove the bones and gristle, and the outside skin, and lay it flat on the table. Strew a little salt and pepper over it, and spread upon it a mixture made as follows. Wash and bone five anchovies, pound them in a mortar, and with them the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs; add the thin rind of half a lemon, finely minced, half a tea-spoonful of powdered mace, the eighth of a nutmeg, grated, six ounces of bread-crumbs, and a table-spoonful of minced parsley. Mix thoroughly. Roll the meat round and round, tie it in a cloth, and bind it securely with tape. Boil it gently. When done enough, place the lamb under a weight, and do not remove the tapes until quite cold. Time to boil, twenty minutes for every pound. Probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian galantine of cheap meat: boned lamb breast rolled round an anchovy and egg forcemeat, boiled, pressed and served cold in slices. Most of the work is in the boning and the tying.
- The hinge: tie it tightA slack roll takes on water and falls apart when sliced. Roll firmly, wrap in scalded muslin or cheesecloth, and bind at intervals of about an inch with butcher's twine (the "tape" of the original was a narrow woven kitchen tape, which does the same job).
- Breast of lambAsk the butcher for a whole untrimmed breast, bone in, about 2-2.5 lb. It is a fatty cut with rib bones, cartilage at the sternum end and a tough outer membrane; all three must come out, and the recipe assumes you can do it or will have it done for you.
- AnchoviesVictorian anchovies came salt-packed in barrels, hence "wash and bone." Modern oil-packed fillets are already boned and much milder in salt; the recipe's five whole fish correspond to roughly ten fillets, which pound down to about a tablespoon of paste. Taste the forcemeat before adding the salt called for at the start.
- SpicesAn eighth of a nutmeg is roughly a quarter teaspoon grated. Powdered mace is still sold; it is milder and more floral than nutmeg, and the recipe uses both deliberately.
- Six ounces of breadcrumbsBy weight, roughly three cups of fresh soft crumbs, or about a cup and a half if you use dry. Fresh crumbs from a day-old loaf give the stuffing the sliceable, slightly moist body intended; packaged dry crumbs will drink the meat juices and go pasty.
- "Boil it gently"That means a bare simmer in salted water or light stock, never a rolling boil, which shreds the roll and squeezes out fat. Twenty minutes to the pound works out at roughly 45-50 minutes for a roll of this size; check that the centre has reached 165F, since the stuffing contains fish and egg and sits in the coolest part.
- PressingLift the roll out still in its cloth, set it on a tray, put a board on top and weight it with a few tins for at least six hours or overnight in the refrigerator. Pressing while warm is what compacts the forcemeat so the cold slices hold together.
- Serving and yieldFive or six as a cold cut, sliced thin, with salad, pickles or a sharp mustard. The "probable cost, 6d. to 8d. per pound" is a period price note, not an instruction.
Collaring is one of the oldest English preservation-adjacent techniques still recognisable in Victorian cookery: a flat piece of meat or fish is seasoned, rolled into a cylinder, bound, cooked and pressed so it can be eaten cold over several days. Collared eel and collared beef flank both work the same way, and breast of lamb was one of the cheapest cuts on the carcass. The anchovy-and-hard-egg forcemeat is characteristic of nineteenth-century British seasoning, where anchovy did the savoury work now done by stock cubes and soy; it was sold pounded as anchovy paste and essence. Dishes like this belonged to the cold sideboard and the supper table, the pressed roll appearing at breakfast, in luncheon baskets and on the table during the long stretches when a household ate down a joint.