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LAMB, COLD (en Blanquette)
Take some cold lamb, mince it finely, and season it with a little salt and pepper. Supposing there to be a pound and a half of cold lamb, divide six large mushrooms into slices. Fry these in three ounces of butter for five minutes, then pour over them half a pint of good veal stock, mixed smoothly with a tea-spoonful of flour, and simmer gently for half an hour. Now add the minced lamb, and the well-beaten yolks of two eggs mixed with four table-spoonfuls of cream. Let these heat very gently, stirring all the time. In ten minutes the lamb will be ready to serve. Garnish the dish with slices of lemon. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the cold lamb. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A Victorian way of stretching Sunday's roast: cold lamb warmed through in a white sauce thickened with egg and cream. The whole dish hinges on temperature control at the end.
- Never let it boilOnce the yolks and cream go in, the sauce must stay below a simmer or the eggs will scramble and the sauce will break. Keep it at a bare steam, stir constantly, and pull the pan off the heat if it starts to shiver. Warming the yolk-cream mixture with a ladleful of the hot stock before adding it makes curdling far less likely.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint of stock is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups; four tablespoonfuls of cream is about 2 fl oz, roughly ¼ cup (a little more if the book's spoon ran large). Three ounces of butter is 6 tablespoons, which is generous — half that will fry six mushrooms perfectly well.
- "En blanquette"The name signals a pale sauce with no browning. Cook the mushrooms gently in the butter so they soften without colouring, and use a light stock; a dark reduced jus would defeat the point.
- Veal stockGood veal stock is rarely on hand now. A light chicken stock is the closest everyday substitute; lamb stock will work but pushes the flavour heavier and darker than intended.
- Mincing the lamb"Mince it finely" can be done by knife or machine, but knife-chopping gives the better result here; machine-ground cooked lamb tends to turn pasty. A small dice, about 1/4 inch, holds its texture in the sauce.
- Reheating cooked meatThe lamb only gets ten minutes in a sauce held below a simmer, which is enough to bring small pieces of already-cooked meat to a safe serving temperature provided the meat was properly chilled and is used within a few days. Do not use lamb that has sat out.
- Yield and servingThree to four as the book says, and it wants something plain and starchy under it: rice or boiled potatoes; triangles of fried bread or puff pastry were a common border for made dishes of this kind, though this recipe calls only for lemon. The lemon slices are not decoration only — a squeeze cuts the richness of the butter and cream.
- Seasoning orderSalt the lamb lightly at the start as directed, then taste again after the liaison goes in. Cream and egg mute salt, and a stock-based sauce reduced for half an hour can concentrate more than you expect.
Blanquette is a long-established category in French cookery — meat cooked or finished in a pale sauce bound with egg yolks and cream, with no browning at any stage, most familiar today as blanquette de veau. What Cassell's does here is characteristically English and characteristically late-Victorian: it borrows the French finish and applies it to the remains of a joint. English cookbooks of this period commonly give whole sections to cold meat, reflecting a household pattern in which a large joint was roasted and then made to reappear, respectably disguised, over following days. The costing — "1s., exclusive of the cold lamb" — belongs to the same logic: the recipe is priced on what the cook must buy, since the meat is already paid for. The egg-and-cream liaison is what raises the dish above plain warmed-up leftovers, and it is the one part of the method that still demands real attention.