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Braised Breast of Mutton
Partly boil it the day before needed so as to more easily free it of its superfluous fat, cut it into pieces, put them into a saucepan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay over them three onions cut in slices. Place the pan over a slow fire, and let the meat cook slowly for about three hours, when it should be done; its own juices and fat will be quite sufficient moisture. Place the meat on a dish, and serve.
Boiled Breast of Mutton with Caper Sauce Cut off the fat from a breast of mutton, and bone the joint. Take three tablespoonfuls of sweet herbs and a couple of sprigs of parsley, chop fine, mix them with four tablespoonfuls of breadcrumbs, season with salt and pepper to taste. Put a layer of this mixture over the boned meat, and tie around with string. Put it in a saucepan of water and boil very slowly over a moderate fire for two hours or until the meat is done. Put it on a dish, remove the string, pour over a little caper sauce and serve with more of the sauce in a sauceboat.
Stewed Breast of Mutton. Bone and score a breast of mutton, season it well with cayenne, black pepper and salt, place in a saucepan with a good supply of gravy that has had the fat skimmed off; boil until tender and place on a dish. Slice a few gherkins and add them with one dessertspoonful of mushroom catsup to the gravy; boil up again and pour the gravy over when ready.
Three separate treatments of the same cut run together here without headings: braised, boiled with caper sauce, and stewed. Read them as three recipes and pick one before you start.
- The cutA breast of mutton is the underside of the animal, taking in the lower ends of the ribs and their cartilage: fatty and layered with connective tissue. Butchers rarely stock mutton now; a 2-3 lb bone-in lamb breast behaves the same way, though it will be milder and cook a little faster.
- Mutton vs. lambMutton is sheep over about two years old, with a strong flavour and a firmer texture that rewards long slow cooking. Nothing in these three methods needs adjusting for lamb except the timing, which you should judge by tenderness rather than the clock.
- The day-before parboilThis is the hinge of the braised version. Simmering the breast a day ahead and chilling it lets the fat set solid so it lifts off cleanly, and the recipe depends on that step to keep the finished dish from being greasy. Skip it and the meat swims.
- "Slow fire" with no added liquidThe braise relies entirely on rendered fat and juice, so use a heavy pot with a tight lid over the lowest burner setting. The recipe gives no oven and no temperature; a very low oven will do the same job if you prefer, but you are judging by the gentleness of the cooking, not by a number. The text insists the meat's own fat and juices are moisture enough, so if the base is dry rather than sizzling after the first hour, a few tablespoons of water will stop it scorching -- that is your addition, not Oscar's.
- Sweet herbsAn old collective term for the soft kitchen herbs, typically thyme, marjoram, savory and parsley. Three tablespoonfuls chopped is a generous handful; keep the stuffing dry enough to hold together against the meat.
- Caper sauce, not givenOscar assumes you know it: a white sauce or thinned velouté made with some of the cooking liquid, finished with drained capers and a little of their vinegar. Any modern version of that will do.
- Mushroom catsupA thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, not tomato ketchup. Mushroom ketchup is still sold; a teaspoon of Worcestershire or a splash of soy plus a little mushroom soaking liquid stands in for the dessertspoonful.
- YieldA single breast serves three to four once boned and trimmed. The braised version in particular is easier to degrease if chilled, which is the logic behind its day-ahead parboil.
Breast of mutton was a cheap cut, and its presence in a Waldorf-Astoria book is a reminder that even a famous hotel kitchen made use of economical cuts. Mutton was ordinary meat in nineteenth-century America and Britain in a way it no longer is: sheep were kept for wool as well as meat, and older carcasses ended up in stews, braises and boiled joints where long cooking could soften them. The caper sauce version follows the standard English treatment of boiled mutton, capers standing in for the sharp pickled note that cuts fat, while the stewed version reaches for gherkins and mushroom ketchup to the same end. Oscar Tschirky, who ran the Waldorf dining rooms from 1893, compiled his 1896 cook book largely from existing professional and domestic sources, which is why cuts and phrasing like these read as older than the hotel itself.