Home › Come and Get It! › Fried Lamb's Fries, or Rocky Mountain Oysters
Fried Lamb's Fries, or Rocky Mountain Oysters
Blanch lamb's fries, dip in batter of egg and flour, and fry in deep fat. Some prefer the blanched fries cut in halves for frying.
Cowboys, Mexicans, sheep herders, Italians, and sturdy mountaineers all go for this most intimate part of the lamb, which is called "lamb's secrets" in England and "lamb's fries" in our butchershops. On the plains, at gelding times, they're simply roasted in a bonfire, like potatoes, and are done in a few minutes.
A four-line recipe that assumes you already know what to do with a testicle. The handling before the batter is the whole job; the frying is trivial.
- What you are buyingLamb's fries are lamb testicles, sold in some halal and Latin American butcher shops and by mail-order offal suppliers, usually frozen. They are not stocked as a matter of course; order ahead.
- "Blanch" here means two operations"Blanch" here covers more than a dip in boiling water: the tough outer membrane has to be split and peeled off, and the fries dropped briefly into boiling salted water and then into cold. Cooks differ on the order — some peel while the fries are still cold and firm, others find the membrane lifts more easily after the parboil. Left on, the casing shrinks and curls in the fat.
- Slice themThe "cut in halves" option is worth taking, or slice them thinner still, about a quarter inch. Whole fries brown outside before the centre is cooked; slices cook through in the time the batter takes to colour.
- Fat temperatureDeep fat for this should be 350-375F. Below that the egg-and-flour batter absorbs grease; above it the coating darkens before the meat sets.
- TimingSliced and blanched, they need roughly two to three minutes to a light gold. Offal of this kind toughens quickly once past done, and there is nothing to be gained by holding them in the fat.
- The batterEgg and flour alone gives a thin, crepe-like coating. A dip in seasoned flour, then beaten egg, then flour again gives the crust most people expect, and the fries need salt and pepper at both stages since the meat itself is very mild.
- YieldLamb's fries are small, often around two ounces apiece though the size varies. Figure four to six per person as a starter with lemon or a sharp sauce.
- The bonfire methodThe plains version described at the end is a campfire improvisation at gelding time, thrown into the embers like potatoes and done in a few minutes. It is not a technique that transfers to meat that has travelled and been frozen.