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Sheep's Trotters, Broiled
Boil the trotters as before (see SHEEP'S TROTTERS, a la Poulette). When tender, take out the bones, and let the feet get cold. Cut them into neat slices, dip them in clarified butter, then into finely-grated bread-crumbs, and broil over a clear fire. Serve with sharp sauce. Time, three hours and a half to boil the trotters.
A two-stage dish: a long, gentle boil to soften the collagen, then a crisp finish over fire. The recipe assumes you have already read the entry for trotters à la poulette, which supplies the initial cleaning and blanching.
- SourcingSheep's (lamb's) trotters are a butcher's order in most places now, and they must come scalded and dehaired. If they arrive with hair or horn on the hoof, they need scraping and the hoof shell drawing off before anything else.
- The first boilThree and a half hours suits the era's older, tougher mutton feet, and it is not excessive. Modern lamb trotters may be tender in two to two and a half hours; the recipe's own test is simply "when tender", and bones that slip out cleanly are a reasonable sign of it.
- Cook them in somethingThe original leans on the earlier entry, so it does not say: boil in salted water with an onion, a carrot, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Plain water gives you nothing back.
- Chilling is not optionalThe feet must go completely cold before slicing. Warm, they are gelatinous and will tear; chilled overnight they set firm enough to cut into neat slices that hold together on the grill.
- Clarified butterMelted whole butter will not do here — its milk solids scorch on the bars and the water in it stops the crumbs adhering. Melt butter gently, skim the foam, pour off the clear fat and leave the milky residue behind.
- "Broil over a clear fire"A clear fire means glowing coals with no flame or smoke. A ridged grill pan over medium-high heat, or an overhead broiler at its highest setting, gives the same result: four to five minutes a side, until the crumbs are brown and crisp all through.
- Sharp sauce"Sharp sauce" -- this most likely means a piquant sauce: a brown sauce sharpened with vinegar, shallot and chopped gherkin or capers. Sauce Robert or a plain caper vinaigrette would serve a similar purpose, which is to cut the richness of the gelatine.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity. As a rough guide, four trotters, boned and sliced, would make a modest first course for two, or a supper dish for one; scale up as needed.
Trotters belonged to the economy of nose-to-tail butchery, when nothing with gelatine in it was thrown away. Sheep's feet were among the cheapest things on a butcher's slab, and trotter dressing was a recognised trade in nineteenth-century British towns; boiled trotters were also a common street and pub food. Cassell's treatment here — bone them, chill, crumb and grill, and serve with a sharp sauce — echoes the French kitchen's handling of the same raw material, and is related to the crumbed-and-grilled à la Sainte-Menehould method applied to pig's trotters. The pairing with an acidic sauce is not mere decoration: gelatinous cuts can read as cloying without it.