Home › The Principles of Cookery › Lamb, Cold Roast, Stew Of
Lamb, Cold Roast, Stew Of
Cold roast lamb is so very nice with a little mint sauce and mashed potatoes that it seems a pity to warm it up. When it is preferred hot, however, the following is an excellent method of preparing it. Cut the cold meat into thin slices, trim these neatly, and season them rather highly with pepper and a little salt. Dip each piece in finely-grated bread-crumbs which have been moistened in gravy, and strew over them a spoonful or two of finely-minced pickles, such as gherkins, walnuts, etc. Pour over the whole two table-spoonfuls of pickle vinegar and four table-spoonfuls of the gravy of the meat. Put the dish in the oven, and let it remain until quite hot. Garnish with browned potato balls. Serve the meat in the dish in which it was heated, which may be placed in another covered with a napkin. Time, about half an hour to heat. Probable cost, 4d., exclusive of the cold meat. Sufficient, two pounds of cold roast meat for three or four persons.
A Victorian second-day dish: cold roast lamb revived with pickles and its own gravy. The method is sound, but the half-hour in the oven is the part that needs watching.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book assumes a coal range. A moderate oven, 350F, is right; the dish only needs to come up to heat, not cook further. Cover it with foil or a lid so the thin slices do not dry to leather.
- Heat it properly throughReheated cooked meat should reach 165F/74C in the centre before serving. Half an hour at 350F will do it for a shallow dish of thin slices, but check rather than trust the clock, and reheat only once.
- Pickled walnutsGreen walnuts pickled in spiced vinegar were a staple British condiment and are still sold in jars, though you may need a specialist grocer or an online source. Capers, cornichons or a sharp piccalilli minced fine will stand in without doing violence to the dish.
- Pickle vinegarThe two tablespoons of liquid from the jar are not optional seasoning; with the four of gravy they are the entire sauce. If your pickles are packed in something very sweet, cut the quantity or the dish turns sour-sweet.
- The crumbs"Finely-grated bread-crumbs" means dry crumbs from stale bread, not the soft fresh sort and not the sandy commercial kind. Moisten them with warm gravy until they clump, then press them onto the seasoned slices.
- GravyThe recipe assumes yesterday's roasting-tin gravy is in the larder. Any well-reduced lamb or brown stock will serve; thin gravy leaves the crumbs pasty.
- Browned potato ballsSmall potatoes, or potato scooped with a melon baller, parboiled and then roasted or fried in dripping until golden. They are the garnish and the starch both.
- ServingThe recipe puts the hot dish inside a second dish covered with a napkin, presumably to protect the table and dress the service; a trivet does much the same job. Two pounds of cold lamb feeds three or four.
Cassell's, like many household manuals of its period, gives space to what to do with the joint on its second and third days. A large roast was economical only if nothing was wasted, and the cook was expected to have a repertoire of rechauffes: hashes, mince, rissoles, and dishes like this one where sharp pickles and vinegar counter the flatness that cooked meat takes on overnight. The opening sentence is telling: roast lamb with mint sauce is judged better cold than warmed up, and the recipe is offered only as a concession to those who want it hot. Pickled walnuts and gherkins were ordinary English store-cupboard goods, put up in late summer and drawn on all winter, and their vinegar was too useful to pour away. The costing in pence, four for everything but the meat, is a standard feature of the book.