Lamb Cutlets
INGREDIENTS.- Loin of lamb, pepper and salt to taste.
AVERAGE COST, 1s. per lb.
Trim off the flap from a fine loin of lamb and cut it into cutlets about inch in thickness. Have ready a bright clear fire; lay the cutlets on a greased gridiron and broil them of a nice brown, turning them when required. Season them with pepper and salt; serve very hot and quickly and garnish with crisped parsley, or place them on mashed potatoes. Asparagus, spinach or peas are the favourite accompaniments to lamb cutlets.
TIME. About 8 or 10 minutes.
SEASONABLE from Easter to Michaelmas.
LAMB CUTLETS.
A plain grilled chop, and the whole thing turns on heat and thickness. The original assumes a coal fire under a gridiron; a ridged grill pan or a charcoal grill gets you closer than an oven broiler.
- The thickness is missingThe text reads "about inch in thickness", the fraction having dropped out in printing. Comparable cutlet recipes of the period usually specify about half an inch, which would be consistent with the stated 8-10 minutes over a fierce fire.
- A bright clear fireThis means coals burned down past flame to a steady red glow, roughly the heat of a well-preheated grill pan or a charcoal bed you can hold a hand over for two or three seconds. Flame licking the fat gives soot and a scorched surface over a raw centre.
- Trimming the flapThe flap is the thin belly end of the loin. Cut it away and the cutlets cook evenly; leave it and it burns while the eye is still cold. The trimmed flap is worth keeping for stock or mincing.
- Lamb donenessLoin cutlets are best pulled at 130-135F internal, pink at the centre, and rested a few minutes. Eight to ten minutes total on a genuinely hot grill will overshoot a thin cutlet; check early and turn once or twice rather than fussing.
- Crisped parsleyParsley sprigs, thoroughly dried, dropped into hot fat at about 350F for a few seconds until they stop spitting and turn brittle. They go bitter and black in moments, so lift them fast.
- YieldA loin of lamb will give something in the region of eight to ten cutlets, enough for four alongside the mashed potato and vegetables suggested. Allow two or three per person.
- Seasonable from Easter to MichaelmasMichaelmas is 29 September. The window reflects the old spring lambing calendar rather than any modern supply constraint.
Grilled lamb cutlets sit at the modest end of Mrs Beeton's repertoire: no sauce, no forcemeat, no elaborate garnish beyond fried parsley, and a cost note of a shilling a pound that placed them within reach of a middle-class household but not a poor one. The gridiron the recipe assumes was standard equipment in a Victorian kitchen, an iron rack set over the open coals of a range. The accompaniments named here all point to the same season the recipe does: asparagus, spinach and peas were spring and early summer produce in Britain before refrigerated shipping, arriving at roughly the same moment as the year's young lamb. The pairing of lamb with those vegetables, still standard on English menus, is less a matter of taste than of a calendar that no longer governs the shops.