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Brochettes of Lamb
Take a raw leg of lamb, remove the bone and pare off the skin, then cut it into several pieces of equal size. Put them in a bowl with two finely chopped shallots, one teaspoonful of chopped chives, and one teaspoonful of parsley, and a crushed clove of garlic. Add the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoonful of salt and one teaspoonful of pepper, also half a teaspoonful of nutmeg. Let them steep for two hours, turning at times, then take the pieces out, run skewers through the centers interlarding them with pieces of salt pork, dip the brochettes in breadcrumbs and broil for four minutes.
A simple marinated lamb skewer from the Waldorf's grill repertoire, written for cooks who already knew how a brochette was assembled. Two things need attention: the size of the meat and the heat of the broiler.
- Cut size is the hingeFour minutes only works if the pieces are small — roughly 1-inch cubes — and the broiler is fully preheated and close to the element. Larger chunks will be raw at the center; if you cut them bigger, expect 8 to 10 minutes with turning.
- The salt is a marinade dose, not a seasoning doseA tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper are for the whole boned leg, roughly 4 to 5 lb of meat. Scaled down to a pound or two, use proportionally less, and remember the salt pork adds more.
- Salt porkModern salt pork is heavily cured; blanch the slices in simmering water for a few minutes and pat dry before threading, or the skewers will be inedibly salty. Cut it thin so it renders in the short cooking time.
- Breadcrumbs need fatDry crumbs on damp meat will scorch under a broiler and fall off. Brush or roll the skewers in melted butter or oil after marinating, then crumb them; use fine dry crumbs rather than fresh.
- Marinating timeThe recipe does not say where the meat should steep; two hours at cool room temperature is the likely assumption. Refrigerate instead, and bring the skewers back toward room temperature for 20 minutes before broiling so the interiors cook in the time given.
- NutmegHalf a teaspoon over a whole leg is subtle, and grated fresh it is very different from pre-ground. Grate it yourself; ground nutmeg that has sat in a jar contributes little.
- SkewersSoak wooden skewers 30 minutes if you use them, or use metal. Flat metal skewers, if you have them, keep the cubes from spinning when turned.
- YieldA boned leg of lamb gives eight to ten skewers, enough for six to eight as a main course. Doneness is best judged by feel or by pulling one cube off and cutting it; medium-rare, around 130F, suits lamb here.
Brochette is simply French for a small skewer, and the word covers the same idea found across the Mediterranean and the Near East — marinated meat threaded and grilled over fire. What marks this version as belonging to a New York hotel kitchen around 1900 is the finish: the shallots, chives, parsley and lemon of a French marinade, then the American touch of salt pork for basting fat, then a breadcrumb coating, which may have been intended to give broiled meat a browned surface and a little protection under intense heat. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel whose name carries this 1896 collection, presumably drew on the repertoire of the house, which is why the instructions assume a cook who already knows how big to cut the cubes and how hot the broiler should be. Interlarding — alternating lean meat with strips of fat — was common before reliable basting under gas broilers.