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Lamb, Noisettes Of
Remove the meat from the loin, pare off the superfluous fat, and cut into about eight or nine neat noisettes, or small fillets. Melt one ounce of butter in a saute-pan, and cook the noisettes over a quick fire until done, but not over-cooked. Season both before and after cooking. Take a number of artichoke bottoms, one for each noisette, heat them in a gill of stock. Chop up a dozen or more small button mushrooms, and stew them in butter, then add the juice of half a lemon and two tea-spoonfuls of chopped herbs. Season to taste, cook for a few minutes, and fill the artichokes with this. Dress the noisettes on a hot dish, put an artichoke on top of each, and pour a good brown sauce round the base of the dish.
A late-Victorian restaurant plate rendered for the domestic cook: boned loin cut into rounds, seared hard, and set on a vegetable base with sauce poured around rather than over. Nothing here is unsafe, but several of the assumptions behind it need translating.
- The hinge: do not overcookThe instruction "done, but not over-cooked" is the whole dish. Noisettes are roughly 1 to 1.5 inches thick and want 2-3 minutes a side over high heat, to about 130-135F for pink at the centre, then a few minutes' rest. Lamb loin has almost no connective tissue to soften, so past medium it simply dries.
- A gillA quarter of a pint; in British measure five fluid ounces, about 150 ml. It is only there to warm the artichoke bottoms through, so a shallow pan and a lid will do.
- Noisettes from the loinAsk for a boned, trimmed loin — one loin gives the eight or nine rounds specified. Many butchers tie each round with string to hold its shape; remove the string before plating. Trim the fat but leave a thin cap for flavour in the pan.
- "A quick fire"On gas or induction this is high heat in a heavy saute pan. One ounce of butter alone will brown and burn at that temperature; add a spoonful of neutral oil, or clarify the butter first.
- Artichoke bottomsTrimming fresh globe artichokes down to the bottoms is a considerable job for eight or nine pieces. Tinned or frozen artichoke bottoms are the practical substitute; drain and rinse tinned ones well, as the brine is assertive.
- The mushroom fillingThis is essentially a duxelles. Chop the mushrooms fine and cook them until the released water has gone and the mixture holds together, otherwise the filling will weep onto the plate. The herbs are unspecified; parsley with chervil or tarragon suits lamb.
- "A good brown sauce"In the cookery of this period that ordinarily means espagnole or a demi-glace, made from browned bones and stock over hours. A reduced lamb or veal stock, thickened lightly, gives the same effect; a jarred demi-glace concentrate is the shortcut. Pour it around the base so the artichokes stay dry on top.
- YieldEight or nine noisettes serve three to four as a main course, or more thinly spread if the dish is one course among several.
Noisette means "little nut" — the small, round, boneless eye of muscle cut from the loin or best end, named for its shape and size rather than any nut in the dish. The cut belongs to the professional kitchen of the later nineteenth century, when boning and shaping meat into uniform portions was a mark of the trained cook. The composition — a small round of meat, a vegetable base beneath or above it, sauce poured around the dish rather than over the meat — is standard garniture practice of the period, generally traced to the codifying French kitchens of the era; artichoke bottoms filled with a mushroom mixture were a familiar garnish of the time.