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Roasted Hindquarter of Lamb
Select a hindquarter of lamb, trim the bone, fix the lamb in a roastingpan and roast it in a hot oven, basting often with butter; when nearly done sprinkle with breadcrumbs, baste again to brown, and sprinkle salt over. When the lamb is cooked put it on a hot dish, surround with a rich gravy, and serve with mint sauce.
Roasted Hindquarter of Lamb with Celery Truss the joint, range it in a bakingpan and roast it in a hot oven. Clean and trim three fresh heads of celery, cutting off the tops and the outside leaves, put them for ten minutes in boiling water, then refresh them with cold water, and tie together in bundles. Place them in a saucepan with a small quantity of sliced carrots, an onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, three-quarters of a pint of chicken broth, half a pint of water and one teacupful of clarified butter; lay a sheet of paper over the whole, put the lid on the saucepan, and keep the contents cooking gently by the side of the fire. When the lamb is cooked, remove and place it on a hot dish, put the celery around, and serve with a sauceboat of half glaze.
Two versions of the same joint: one finished with a crumb crust and mint sauce, the other served with braised celery and demi-glace. The instructions assume a hotel kitchen where someone is watching the oven, so the temperatures and doneness are left to judgement.
- What a hindquarter isThe whole back end of the animal on one bone — leg, loin, chump and often the flank — commonly upwards of 10 lb on a modern lamb, and larger than most domestic ovens and roasting pans will take. A butcher will need notice to cut one. A 6–8 lb bone-in leg is the practical substitute and serves 8–10.
- "A hot oven"Usually taken to mean somewhere around 400–450F. For a joint this size it is safer to start there for 20–25 minutes to set the surface, then drop to 325–350F for the remainder, or the outer inch will be grey before the centre is warm.
- DonenessOscar gives no time or test. Roast to an internal temperature of 130–135F at the thickest part of the leg for pink lamb, 145F for medium, and rest the joint 20–30 minutes before carving. On a whole hindquarter the loin end will always run ahead of the leg.
- The crumb crustThe hinge in the first version. The breadcrumbs go on only in the last 10–15 minutes, over a surface already slick with butter, and are basted once to colour. Applied earlier they burn and shed.
- Clarified butterA teacupful is roughly 4–6 fl oz — a considerable amount in the celery braise, where it supplies effectively all the cooking fat. Butter clarified at home over low heat, with the milk solids skimmed and the water left behind, behaves as the original intends; ghee is close enough.
- "Refresh them with cold water"Blanch the celery, then plunge it into iced water. This stops the cooking and keeps the heads pale and firm so they hold their shape through the long braise.
- The sheet of paper and the fireA cartouche — parchment cut to the pan, laid directly on the celery under the lid — keeps the tops submerged in steam. "Cooking gently by the side of the fire" means a bare simmer; a 300F oven holds it more reliably than a burner, and the celery wants 45 minutes to an hour.
- Half glazeDemi-glace: brown stock and espagnole reduced together to a coating consistency. A well-reduced lamb or veal stock, finished with the strained braising liquid from the celery, gets you where the sauceboat is going.
- Mint sauceNot mint jelly. The English sauce of the period is chopped mint steeped in hot vinegar with a little sugar, served thin and sharp and at room temperature.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf from 1893, and later those of the Waldorf-Astoria, and his 1896 book is essentially the house repertoire of a hotel cooking in the French manner for New Yorkers with English tastes. The hindquarter, or baron when the two hind legs are left joined, was a carving-trolley showpiece — a joint too large for a household and sized for a dining room where the meat was cut in front of the guests. Serving it two ways captures the split in the book: mint sauce and buttered crumbs are straight English roast-meat practice, while the braised celery with its cartouche, the mirepoix of carrot and onion and the sauceboat of half glaze are pure Escoffier-era brigade technique. Celery was a fashionable American vegetable in the 1890s, grown in quantity in the muck fields of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and sold in tall glass vases on hotel tables.