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Ragout of Mutton
6 cooked chops 2 small turnips 2 onions 2 ounces butter 1 tablespoon Gold Medal flour 1 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 pint stock Slice the vegetables, brown them in the butter, dredging in the flour and sugar, stirring to get an even brown; remove the vegetables; sprinkle the chops with salt and pepper; brown the meat in the same fat the vegetables were browned in; return the vegetables to the pan, add the stock, cover closely and simmer until tender. Meat from a boiled breast of mutton may be cut in squares and used instead of chops. This ragout may be made with green peas in season and should always be used for a lamb ragout.
A leftovers dish built on browned vegetables and a sugar-darkened roux, from an era when a Sunday joint reappeared on Tuesday. Nothing here is difficult; the points below are mostly about units, meat that has changed, and the browning step that carries the whole dish.
- The hinge: brown the sugar, do not burn itThe teaspoon of sugar dredged in with the flour is what gives the sauce its colour and faint sweetness, and it will scorch in seconds once it takes. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly until the flour and vegetables are an even chestnut brown, then get the vegetables out of the pan.
- Half a pint of stockAn American half-pint is one cup (8 fl oz, about 240 ml). That is a small amount deliberately — this is a braise with a clinging sauce, not a stew. Add more only if the pan threatens to go dry.
- Cooked chopsThe recipe assumes six chops left from a previous meal, already cooked through. If you are starting from raw, brown them properly and expect the simmer to run longer. Six mutton chops is roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb of meat once trimmed.
- Mutton and its substitutesMutton — mature sheep, generally reckoned over a year or two old — is rare in American supermarkets and is worth seeking from a halal butcher or a farm supplier. Lamb shoulder or leg works; the recipe refers in passing to a lamb ragout, though the only substitute it actually names is meat from a boiled breast of mutton. Lamb is milder and needs less simmering.
- "Simmer until tender"With already-cooked chops, 30 to 45 minutes covered over low heat is usually enough for the flavours to marry and the turnips to soften. Raw shoulder cut in squares wants 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
- Turnips"Small turnips" here means white salad or purple-top turnips, not rutabaga. Two small ones is about 8 oz. Slice them no thicker than 1/4 inch or they will still be firm when the sauce is done.
- The peas sentenceThe closing line reads awkwardly and can be taken two ways: that green peas may be added in season and should always be included in a lamb ragout, or that this method should always be used for a lamb ragout. The original does not settle it. If you add peas, stir them in during the last five minutes so they keep their colour.
- YieldThree to four servings, with mashed potatoes or plain boiled rice to take up the sauce.
The word ragout comes from the French ragoûter, to revive the appetite, and it had long since settled into English cookery as the standard name for meat stewed in a well-flavoured brown sauce. What makes this a recipe of its moment is the assumption behind the first ingredient — six cooked chops. A household roasting or boiling a joint expected to eat from it for several days, and a book issued by a flour company was happy to show that a tablespoon of its product could turn Sunday's remains into Tuesday's dinner. Mutton was still ordinary meat in America at the time; the shift to lamb, and the near-disappearance of mature sheep from the retail trade, came later in the century.