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Trotters, Sheep's, Marinaded
Bone and boil the trotters till tender, according to the directions already given, and press them between two dishes till cold. Cut them into neat slices, and lay them in a marinade made with two table-spoonfuls of vinegar, a table-spoonful of oil, and a little pepper and salt. Let them lie in this for an hour, place them on a sieve, and drain for twenty minutes. Dip the pieces separately in batter, and fry them as in the last recipe. Time to boil, three hours and a half; to fry, a few minutes. (See also SHEEP'S TROTTERS, MARINADED.)
A Victorian way of turning long-boiled sheep's feet into a fritter: gelatinous meat pressed flat, briefly soused in a vinaigrette, then battered and fried. The whole thing hinges on the pressing stage, which is what makes the slices firm enough to handle.
- SourcingSheep's or lamb's trotters are a special order from a halal butcher or a traditional butcher, rarely a supermarket. They arrive with hair and hoof; scald, scrape and singe them, or ask the butcher to do it.
- The three and a half hours is realTrotters are almost entirely collagen and connective tissue. They need long, gentle simmering until the meat slides off the bones; rushing them at a hard boil clouds the liquid and leaves the tissue tough rather than melting.
- Bone before or afterThe instruction to bone first is optional in practice and easier after cooking, when the small bones lift out cleanly. Either way, all bone must come out before pressing.
- Pressing is the hingePack the hot boned meat tightly between two plates with a weight on top and leave it until quite cold (several hours, or overnight). The gelatin sets it into a sliceable block; skip this and there is nothing to dip in batter.
- The marinadeTwo tablespoons vinegar to one of oil is a sharp vinaigrette, not a cure. One hour is enough to season the surface, and the twenty-minute drain matters -- wet slices will shed their batter in the fat.
- Batter and fryingAny plain frying batter suits. Fry in hot deep fat until the coating is set and golden, a few minutes, since the meat inside is already fully cooked.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; trotters make a modest dish, best served very hot with lemon or a sharp sauce, as they turn heavy and claggy as they cool.
Trotters belong to the economy of a household that bought whole animals or shopped from a butcher who sold every part cheaply. Cassell's treats them as a matter of course, giving several versions in sequence, and the marinaded-and-fried method is one nineteenth-century way of dressing up a cold, already-cooked, gelatinous meat: acidulate it, coat it, fry it, and it reads as an entree rather than as leftovers. The word marinade in this period often means a brief steep in vinegar and oil for flavour and to cut richness, rather than the long tenderising soak the term suggests now. Sheep's trotters have largely dropped out of British cooking but survive elsewhere as pacha, paya and similar slow-cooked dishes across the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia, where the same collagen-rich texture is the point rather than a problem to be disguised.