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Roasted Forequarter of Lamb
Cover a forequarter of lamb with slices of bacon, and wrap it up in a sheet of buttered paper. Roast in the oven, and when it is cooked enough, raise the shoulder from the neck with a knife, fill the cavity with butter, and serve on a hot dish.
Oscar assumes a butcher who can hand over a whole forequarter and a cook who knows when a roast is done by feel. The recipe gives no temperature, no time and no weight, so almost everything practical has to be supplied.
- What a forequarter isThe front section of the carcass: shoulder, neck, foreshank and the first several ribs. Weight varies a great deal with the size of the animal, and on a modern lamb a whole forequarter can be considerably heavier than a domestic oven will take, so it is worth ordering ahead and asking what the butcher can actually supply, and whether the breast and shank are left on. A bone-in shoulder of 4-6 lb behaves the same way and fits a domestic oven.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A roast of this size and shape does best started at 425F for 20 minutes to set the surface, then dropped to 325F for the remainder. The forequarter is a working set of muscles with a lot of connective tissue, so slow beats fast.
- DonenessReckon roughly 20-25 minutes per pound at 325F, then judge by thermometer, not clock. Shoulder cuts are unpleasant at rare; 160-165F in the thickest part of the shoulder renders the fat and softens the sinew. Rib and loin cuts of lamb are the ones that want 130-135F.
- The baconThis is barding, not flavouring. Lay thin, unsmoked streaky bacon or sheets of pork fatback over the exposed lean, especially the neck and shank end; heavily smoked supermarket bacon will dominate the lamb. Remove it for the last 20 minutes if you want colour on the meat.
- Buttered paperA sheet of paper brushed with butter, wrapped and tied, was the standard way to stop a long roast drying. Parchment, tied with kitchen twine, does the same job. Foil works but steams more; if you use it, open it out for the final half hour.
- The hinge: butter in the shoulderAfter roasting, slide a knife between the blade bone and the neck to open the natural pocket and drop in butter, plain or worked with chopped parsley and lemon. It melts into the seam and dresses the meat as it is carved. Oscar says to send it straight to table on a hot dish; a short rest before carving will make the joint easier to handle, though the book does not call for one.
- CarvingA forequarter carves in sections rather than in neat slices: take the shoulder off first, then the ribs as cutlets, then the neck meat pulled from the bone. Warm the platter properly, as lamb fat sets fast on cold china.
- YieldDepending on the size of the quarter, expect to serve eight or more, with plenty of bone left over for broth. A 5 lb bone-in shoulder handled the same way serves 5-6.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf dining rooms rather than the ranges, and his 1896 Cook Book reflects a kitchen working in the French professional idiom of the day: barding with bacon, wrapping in buttered paper, and a laconic instruction that assumes the reader is a trained cook. Forequarter cuts were the cheaper end of the lamb, and a whole one yields shoulder, cutlets and neck from a single piece. Filling the opened shoulder joint with butter is a period restaurant flourish, of a piece with the maitre d'hotel butter served on grilled meats, and it works because the seam beside the blade bone holds a surprising amount of it.