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Breast of Lamb Braised a la Milanese
Cover the bottom of a saucepan with thin slices of fat bacon; on these place a trimmed breast of lamb with 2 or 3 slices of lemon on top, and cover the whole with a few more slices of bacon. Add a sliced onion and pour in 1/2 pint of stock; cover, and put live ashes on top of the lid. Draw the saucepan to one side of the fire and braise slowly till the breast is tender, glazing it when cooked. Lay it on a bed of macaroni on a hot dish, pour rich brown gravy over, and serve.
A fireside braise written for a heavy lidded pot buried in embers. Everything translates directly to a Dutch oven in a low oven; the only real work is managing the fat on a breast of lamb.
- Breast of lambA fatty, bony cut from below the ribs, sold trimmed or rolled at halal and traditional butchers but rarely on supermarket shelves. One breast serves two, three at most, and it wants long slow cooking to render the fat and soften the connective tissue.
- "Live ashes on top of the lid"This is heat from above as well as below, the same principle as a camp Dutch oven. A covered casserole in a 300-325F oven does the same thing and needs no tending; count on 2 to 2 1/2 hours until a skewer meets no resistance.
- Half a pint of stockIn a British book of this period that is 10 fl oz, so about 1 1/4 cups. It should come no more than a third of the way up the meat; this is a braise, not a boil.
- Fat baconLikely unsmoked fat bacon; thin sheets of fresh pork fatback are a plausible substitute. Streaky bacon works but its cure and smoke will dominate; blanch it for a minute in boiling water first if you want the lemon and onion to read at all.
- Glazing it when cookedLift the meat out, strain the braising liquid, skim the considerable fat, then reduce it to a syrup and brush it over the breast. A few minutes under a hot broiler sets the glaze to a shine.
- Press it, if you have timeCooled breast of lamb between two trays under a weight slices far more neatly and reheats well in the glaze. The book assumes you serve it straight from the pot, which is harder to carve gracefully.
- The macaroni bedMost likely plain boiled macaroni, drained and tossed with butter, rather than a baked cheese dish, though period versions of the garnish sometimes included cheese. Cook it to the point where it still has some bite so it does not collapse under the gravy.
- Rich brown gravyProbably a separate made brown sauce of the espagnole type. The reduced and skimmed braising liquid, thickened lightly, is a reasonable stand-in and tastes more of the dish.
"A la Milanese" in Victorian and Edwardian English cookery books often signals little more than a bed of macaroni, sometimes with cheese, tomato or shredded ham, a shorthand borrowed from French professional kitchens rather than from Milanese cooking itself. Breast of lamb had a settled place on the British table then because it was cheap: the fat and bone that make it awkward also made it affordable, and slow braising with bacon, onion and a little stock was a common treatment for such cuts. The instruction to bank live ashes on the lid and draw the pan to one side of the fire points to the open range, where a cook controlled temperature by position rather than by dial, and the resulting all-round gentle heat is what a modern low oven reproduces.