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Lamb Cutlets, Grilled
Cut the required number of cutlets from the best end of a neck, and pare and trim them neatly. Place on a gridiron, which has been previously rubbed with mutton (or lamb) fat, over a good clear fire, and cook for from five to ten minutes, according to the thickness of the cutlets and the strength of the fire, turning them every minute. Season them well with salt and pepper. Put a paper frill on each cutlet bone, and dish them up in a circle on a border of mashed potatoes. Fill the centre with nicely-cooked and flavoured green peas, pour a little hot gravy round the base of the dish, and serve. Probable cost, 1s. per pound.
A straightforward grill whose only real demands are butchery and heat. The original assumes a clear coal fire and a butcher who will bone out a neck for you.
- The cut"Best end of neck" is the rack — the rib section behind the shoulder. Ask for a rack of lamb, chined and French-trimmed, and cut between the bones for single cutlets about 3/4 in thick.
- Heat, not time"A good clear fire" means coals with no flame or smoke, radiating steadily. On a gas grill or a ridged cast-iron pan, get it hot enough that the fat sizzles instantly; a slow surface stews the cutlets in their own juices instead of browning them.
- DonenessFive to ten minutes with turns every minute gives pink lamb, which is right. Aim for about 130–135F at the centre for medium-rare; a thick chop may want closer to the ten minutes, a thin one nearer five.
- Turning every minuteFrequent turning is not fussiness: it cooks the chop more evenly, and turning often over high heat is widely recommended today.
- Rubbing the gridironLamb or mutton fat on the bars is the period non-stick. Trimmings from the rack rendered in a pan give you the same thing; oil with a high smoke point works as well.
- Season after, or after the first searThe recipe salts at the end; some cooks hold that salt drawn to the surface early can slow browning, though the point is disputed. Pepper may scorch over live coals.
- Paper frillsDecorative cuffs of cut paper over the exposed bone; they are often said to have let a guest pick up a cutlet without greasing the fingers. Skip them without loss.
- Yield and the plateAllow two to three cutlets a person, so a best end of six or seven ribs serves two or three. The mashed-potato border is piped or spooned into a ring, the peas go in the middle, and the gravy is poured outside the potato so it does not flood it.
Cassell's gives this as one of the plainer grills, and the note of "probable cost, 1s. per pound" reflects a book written for households keeping accounts as closely as recipes. The elaborate presentation — cutlets stood in a ring on a potato border, peas heaped in the centre, frills on each bone — belongs to a style of service in which a dish was built up on the platter and carried whole to the table rather than plated individually. The frill dresses the exposed bone, and the fat pared away in trimming was exactly what greased the gridiron.