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Braised Mutton Chops
Cut the chops off a rack of mutton without flattening them, remove a part of the flat bone at the end, also a part of their fat. Put them in a stewpan with the pieces cut off them, add three sliced onions, a bunch of parsley and a small quantity of carrots; season with spice and salt, add four or five tablespoonfuls of broth to braise them. When they are well done remove and place on a strainer to drain and cool. Pass the liquor through a fine sieve and reduce it to a glaze, place the chops in this and dish in a circle, with the onion sauce poured in the center.
A classic braise written in the shorthand of a professional kitchen, where the reader was assumed to know how much liquid, how much heat and how long. A few things need filling in.
- The hinge: braise low, then glazeFour or five tablespoons of broth is not a cooking liquid, it is a moistening. The recipe uses a stewpan, so the chops effectively steam over gentle heat in their own fat and juices, and the pan needs to be kept closely covered; the small amount of broth is what later reduces to the glaze. A hard boil or an uncovered pan will leave you with nothing to reduce.
- MuttonMutton means a mature sheep, usually reckoned at over a year and often over two, stronger and firmer than lamb. It is hard to find from most butchers now; hogget or mature lamb is the nearest thing. A rack of lamb should be tender in well under an hour, where true mutton is likely to want an hour or more.
- "Without flattening them"This most likely means do not bat the chops out with a cutlet bat, a common preparation for grilled or breaded chops. Keeping their thickness helps them survive the long moist heat.
- The trimmings go in the panThe bone tips and fat cut away are returned to the stewpan. With only a few spoonfuls of broth they do much of the work of a stock, so do not discard them. Strain them out with the vegetables at the end.
- "Season with spice"Nineteenth-century kitchen shorthand for a mixed spice, usually pepper with a little mace, nutmeg or clove. A generous grind of black pepper and a pinch of mace is faithful to the intent.
- Reducing to a glazeStrain the liquor, skim the fat hard (chilling it makes this easy), then boil down until it coats the back of a spoon and is visibly syrupy. Roll the cooled chops in it so they take on a lacquer, then reheat briefly.
- Onion sauceAssumed knowledge in this book, and not the braising onions. It is a white sauce enriched with onions cooked soft in butter and milk, poured into the well of the ringed chops.
- YieldA rack gives seven or eight chops, enough for three or four as a main course. The dish is designed to be served in a circle on a hot platter, so warm the plates.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria from 1893, and his 1896 cook book set down the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen, which at that date meant classical French cookery with English chop-house habits folded in. Mutton was the serious meat of that era's hotel menus, tougher and far more strongly flavoured than the lamb most cooks know now, and braising was the standard way to bring an older animal round. The finishing gesture here is pure professional French practice: the cooking liquor reduced to glace and the chops rolled in it, so each one arrives with the concentrated gloss that a sauce poured over at the last minute cannot give. Serving a circle of chops around a pool of sauce belongs to the same tradition of composed platter service, later largely displaced by plating in the kitchen.