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LAMB CUTLETS (a la Princesse)
Trim and shape some lamb cutlets neatly, and fry them plainly (see LAMB CHOPS, FRIED), letting them be rather underdone than otherwise. When half cold dip each cutlet into some good melted butter, flavoured with mushrooms. Place them upon ice to set the sauce, and afterwards egg, bread-crumb, and fry them in the usual way, and serve with asparagus, green peas, or any other vegetables. Good white sauce should be sent to table in a tureen. Time, twenty minutes altogether to cook the cutlets--ten minutes each time. Probable cost, 1s. per pound. Sufficient, half a dozen for three persons.
LAMB CUTLETS (a la Princesse), another way.
Take a table-spoonful of each of the following ingredients, all finely minced:--Parsley, shallots, mushrooms, and lean ham. Put these into a stewpan with an ounce of fresh butter, and stir them over the fire for five minutes. Add a quarter of a pint of sauce, a little pepper and salt, half a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, a dessert-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, three grates of nutmeg, and the yolks of two eggs. Stir the sauce over the fire until it thickens, but it must not boil. Partially fry the cutlets, as in the last recipe; when nearly cold dip them into the above preparation, and place them upon ice until the sauce is set. Dip the cutlets in egg and afterwards in bread-crumbs; fry, and serve them with a puree of spinach or green peas. Time, twenty minutes to fry the cutlets--ten minutes each time. The above quantity of sauce is sufficient for a dozen cutlets. Probable cost, 1s. per pound.
This is the Villeroi method under another name: cook the cutlets, coat them in a stiff sauce, chill until the coating is firm, then crumb and fry. The chilling step is the hinge — if the sauce is not properly set, it slides off in the pan.
- Total cooking time is too longTwenty minutes of frying for a lamb cutlet gives grey meat. Sear the first time for 2-3 minutes a side, leaving the inside distinctly rare, then fry the crumbed cutlets 2-3 minutes for colour.
- "A quarter of a pint of sauce"About 5 fl oz, roughly 2/3 cup. The book means a made sauce — a velouté or plain white sauce — not stock. It should be thick enough to coat a spoon before the yolks go in.
- The yolks must not boilThe second version is a liaison thickened with two yolks. Held above roughly 180F it will curdle and the coating will be grainy rather than smooth. Stir over low heat until it holds a heavy ribbon, then take it off.
- "Good melted butter" in the first versionIn Victorian usage melted butter is a flour-thickened butter sauce, not plain clarified butter. Plain butter will not set on the cutlet, however cold it gets.
- Setting on iceAn hour in the refrigerator does the same work; the freezer for 20 minutes does it faster. The coating should be firm to the touch before crumbing, and the cutlets should go straight from cold into hot fat.
- Shallots and "three grates of nutmeg"Read the nutmeg as a scant 1/8 teaspoon. The mince of parsley, shallot, mushroom and lean ham is essentially a duxelles with ham; sweat it until the mushroom liquid has gone, or the sauce will be too loose to set.
- Yield and costSix cutlets for three people, as the book says — small trimmed cutlets, so two each. The prices are 19th-century retail and mean nothing now.
The technique here belongs to the family of dishes the French kitchen calls à la Villeroi: a cooked item masked in a thick reduced sauce, chilled until the coating is solid, then breaded and fried so the sauce becomes a sealed layer inside the crust. Names like à la princesse were, in Victorian and Edwardian menu practice, largely decorative — a garnish label rather than a fixed formula, most often implying asparagus or a pale sauce, which fits the asparagus and white sauce sent to table in a tureen here. Cassell's was compiled for households with a cook but not a French chef, and the two versions show its usual method: give the simple form first, then the more elaborate one with a duxelles-and-ham coating bound with egg yolks, so the same dish can be pitched at either a family dinner or company.