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Lamb Cutlets and Spinach
Pick the stalks from two pounds of spinach and wash it in several waters. Let it drain, then put it into plenty of boiling water, in which about a table-spoonful of salt has been thrown, keep pressing it down with a wooden spoon, and let it boil very quickly. Drain and squeeze the water from it, and chop it very small. Put it into a saucepan with a little salt and pepper, one ounce of butter, and two table-spoonfuls or half a gill of thick cream or rich gravy. Stir it without ceasing over the fire with a wooden spoon until it is quite hot throughout, and the moisture is absorbed. Keep it hot until the cutlets are ready. These may be trimmed, egged, bread-crumbed, and broiled or fried in the usual way (see LAMB CHOPS, BROILED, and LAMB CHOPS, FRIED). Press the spinach into a mould, turn it on a hot dish, and place the cutlets round it in an upright position, one overlapping the other. Time, ten minutes to boil the spinach. Probable cost, cutlets, 1s. per pound; spinach, 2d. per pound. Sufficient, about two pounds of spinach will be required for half a dozen chops.
A Victorian composed dish: a dome of buttered spinach purée ringed with breaded cutlets. The spinach does most of the work, and the one thing that decides whether it succeeds is how dry you get it.
- Squeeze it hardTwo pounds of raw spinach cooks down to a small fraction of its bulk — a couple of cupfuls at most — and it holds a startling amount of water. Wring it in a clean towel until no more drips out, or the finished purée will slump instead of holding the shape of the mould.
- Half a gillA gill is a quarter-pint; in the imperial measure this book uses, that makes half a gill about 2½ fl oz, or a shade under a third of a cup. The recipe's own "two table-spoonfuls" does not add up to that, so the two figures it offers do not agree.
- Ten minutes is for old spinachMature bunched spinach with thick stalks removed may want five to eight minutes; modern bagged baby spinach wilts in under two. Judge by tenderness, not the clock, and cook it uncovered at a hard boil so it keeps its colour.
- WeightsAn ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons. Two pounds of spinach is about two large supermarket bunches, or roughly three 10 oz bags.
- Cutlets versus chopsA lamb cutlet here is a single rib chop, trimmed of the fat and scraped clean along the bone so it stands neatly. The recipe gives quantities for half a dozen chops but does not say how many people it feeds; at two apiece that is a dish for three, with the spinach as the only accompaniment.
- Breading and cookingEgg and crumb the cutlets just before cooking so the coating does not go damp. Crumbed cutlets are better shallow-fried in butter or oil over medium heat, four to five minutes a side for a 1-inch chop; a broiler tends to scorch the crumbs before the meat is done.
- Turning out the mouldPack the hot spinach firmly into a small buttered basin or ramekin, press down, and invert onto a warmed dish. It only holds if the spinach is dry and still hot; assemble at the last moment.
- Rich gravyThe alternative to cream is reduced brown stock, an option in any kitchen with a stockpot going. A few spoonfuls of well-reduced lamb or beef stock gives a darker, savourier purée than cream does.
Cassell's arranges its entries alphabetically, which is why lamb cutlets appear here paired with the vegetable rather than as a technique — the book assumes you already know how to broil a chop and cross-references you to those entries. The upright ring of cutlets around a moulded centre is often loosely associated with nineteenth-century service à la russe, in which courses were brought in and portioned by servants away from the table rather than carved in front of the diners; the same arrangement turns up with mashed potato, peas or macaroni in the middle. Spinach dressed with butter and cream, chopped fine rather than left in leaves, is close to what French cookery called épinards à la crème. The costings are a useful measure of the period: at 1s. a pound for cutlets against 2d. a pound for spinach, the meat cost six times as much as the vegetable.