No. 1697

Lamb Haslets Marinated

Fraissure d'Agneau a la Marinade

Blanch the lights, drain and cut them up into inch and a half squares; melt some chopped fat pork in a saucepan and when very hot lay in the lights and fry them for a few minutes over a very brisk fire; add the heart cut into eight pieces and the liver in inch and a quarter pieces; season with salt, pepper, mignonette and a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme and bay leaf, sprinkle over with flour, then moisten with stock (No. 194a) and half white wine; let the whole cook till done to three-quarters, then lay in sixty small fried onions and a pound of small mushrooms; as soon as these are cooked, suppress the parsley, season nicely and notice whether the sauce is not too thin; when right, dress, pour the liquid over and garnish around with croutons fried in butter.

Another Way.—This dish may also be made by placing the haslets cut up in an earthen crock with minced carrots, onions, thyme, bay leaves, sprigs of parsley, salt pepper, mace, vinegar and oil and allowing it to marinate for twelve hours, being careful to turn the meat several times so that it all reaches the marinade; drain and fry in butter, besprinkle over with flour, moisten with white or red wine and stock (No. 194a) season and boil slowly till thoroughly cooked, then serve.

← No. 1696 Lamb Fries, Cream Horseradish or Tomato Sauc Lamb No. 1698 Lamb Head, Genoise or Vinaigrette Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

A pluck stew from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, written for a restaurant brigade and scaled accordingly. The whole dish turns on staggering the offal: lungs, heart and liver cook at very different rates, and the liver is in the pan for minutes, not the whole braise.

What haslets areThe fraissure or haslet is the pluck of the animal: lights (lungs), heart and liver, sometimes with the attached windpipe trimmed away. A single lamb's pluck yields roughly 2 to 3 lb of meat once trimmed, though the sixty onions and pound of mushrooms called for here suggest Ranhofer was working with more than one set.
Lights are not sold in the United StatesUSDA regulations prohibit lung tissue in food sold for human consumption, so lights are unavailable from American butchers. Elsewhere they must be ordered ahead. A workable substitute is to raise the proportion of heart, which has a similar firm, chewy texture, and keep the liver quantity as written.
Blanching the lightsLungs are spongy and hold a great deal of blood. Ranhofer specifies only that they be blanched and drained; blanching firms them for cutting and takes off the metallic edge, and the sauce is likely to be cleaner for it.
Liver goes in lastRanhofer adds heart and liver together, but a lamb's heart wants 45 minutes to an hour of gentle braising and liver wants five minutes at most. Add the liver near the end of the cooking or fry it separately and fold it in, or it will go grainy and dry.
MignonetteMignonette here means coarsely cracked pepper, commonly a mixture of white and black peppercorns, rather than a sauce. Crush the peppercorns under a pan rather than grinding them fine.
Sixty small onionsRestaurant quantities. Sixty peeled pearl or button onions is around 2 lb; for a household version of four to six servings, figure 12 to 16 onions and 4 to 6 oz of small mushrooms. Ranhofer gives no measure for the liquid, and "stock and half white wine" may mean either half as much wine as stock or equal parts; moisten to just cover.
Stock No. 194aThe cross-reference is to one of Ranhofer's stock recipes. A good unsalted veal or chicken stock stands in; the flour dusted over the meat is the only thickener, so the liquid should reduce to a coating consistency before serving.
"Done to three-quarters"Cook until the heart and lights are nearly tender but still have resistance, then add the onions and mushrooms so they finish in the sauce and pick up its flavour rather than collapsing.
The marinade versionTwelve hours in vinegar, oil and aromatics belongs in the refrigerator, not on a cool larder shelf. Drain and pat the pieces thoroughly dry before frying or they will steam and the flour will not brown.

A Little History

Fraissure is the old French butcher's word for the pluck, the connected lungs, heart and liver lifted out of the carcass together, and its appearance in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) says a good deal about how a great nineteenth-century kitchen worked. Ranhofer devotes a long run of numbered recipes to the parts of the lamb that came with the carcass: fries, head, haslets. Nothing was thrown away, but nothing was served plainly either, and the pluck gets glazed onions, button mushrooms, white wine and fried croutons, the same garnish treatment a fricassee of chicken would receive. The marinade variant, meat steeped overnight in vinegar, oil and aromatics before frying, is often said to be older country practice carried into the restaurant: it was generally used to soften strong-flavoured or tough cuts.