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Mutton, Ragout of, French
Place three ounces of butter in a stewpan; as it melts, stir in two table-spoonfuls of flour; continue to stir until it is nicely browned, then put in about two pounds of breast or neck of mutton cut into square pieces, and sufficient water to nearly cover the mutton; flavour with a few sprigs of parsley, which must afterwards be removed. Add two lumps of sugar, and pepper and salt to taste. When it has once boiled, remove to the side of the fire, and be careful to let it only simmer for an hour. Fry to a nice brown three good-sized turnips previously cut into dice; put them into the stewpan with the meat, and simmer for a couple of minutes. Arrange the ragout upon the dish, placing the turnips in the centre, and the pieces of meat round the edge. Pour the sauce over the whole, and serve very hot. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A plain brown ragout built on a browned roux, with turnips fried separately so they keep their edges. It is straightforward, but two things in the method need translating and one needs correcting.
- The hinge: brown the roux properlyThe 3 oz butter and 2 tablespoons flour must be stirred until the flour is genuinely nut-brown before the meat goes in; this is the only source of colour and depth in the dish. Browned flour thickens less than pale flour, which is why the sauce stays a gravy rather than a paste.
- "Remove to the side of the fire"On a range this meant sliding the pan off the hot plate to a cooler spot. Translate as the lowest burner setting, so the surface barely trembles.
- The meat is fatty; skimBreast of mutton especially, and neck to a lesser degree, render a good deal of fat over an hour, and the recipe never mentions skimming. Spoon the fat off the top before saucing, or chill the finished ragout and lift the cap.
- Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over about two years old, still sold by some butchers and halal shops but not most supermarkets. Lamb shoulder or neck will substitute; expect a milder flavour and about 15 minutes less cooking, and check the meat is tender before proceeding.
- Two lumps of sugarLump sugar of the period varied in size, but a lump was broadly comparable to a modern cube, so perhaps two teaspoons in total. It is there to round out the browned flour and the turnips, not to sweeten the dish.
- An hour may not be enoughBreast and neck are collagen-heavy cuts. An hour at a bare simmer often leaves them chewy; test at the hour and give them another 30 to 45 minutes if the meat still resists a fork.
- TurnipsUse white turnips rather than swede. Fry the dice in butter or beef dripping until browned at the edges, then give them only the two minutes stated with the meat, plus enough residual heat to finish; longer and they collapse into the sauce.
- YieldTwo pounds of bone-in breast or neck serves three, four at a stretch with potatoes or bread. "Probable cost, 1s. 6d." is the household budgeting note Cassell's attached to most entries.
Ragout is simply the French ragoût, from ragoûter, to revive the appetite, and by the nineteenth century English cookery books used it for almost any stew of cut meat in a made sauce. What marks this one as "French" to Cassell's seems to be the technique rather than any regional origin: the dish begins with a browned roux in the pan before the meat goes in, in the manner of a sauce espagnole, where the more common English approach was to flour the meat or thicken at the end. Breast and neck were among the cheapest sheep cuts on the butcher's block, and turnips one of the cheapest winter roots, which is why a recipe like this sits comfortably in a dictionary aimed at middle-class households keeping an eye on the weekly book. The costing in pence is printed at the end of nearly every entry in Cassell's.