No. 1706

Leg of Lamb a la Britannia, or Green Sauce or Caper Sauce

Gigot d'Agneau a la Britannia ou Sauce Verte ou Sauce aux Capres

Pare nicely a leg of yearling lamb, cut off the knuckle bone at the handle, remove about two inches of the meat from this to make a handle, scraping the bone clean, weigh the meat and plunge it into boiling water; let it boil for fifteen minutes for each pound and add to it salt, pepper a bunch of parsley garnished with thyme, bay leaf, clove of garlic, two cut carrots and four onions. After the leg is done, dress on a long dish, and trim it with a paper frill (No. 10), glaze the meat. Serve separately a well buttered espagnole sauce (No. 414), into which add lemon juice, mignonette and chopped parsley; garnish around with cauliflower boiled in salted water.

With Green Sauce.—Prepare it exactly the same as for the above, and when the leg is dressed serve without garnishing and with a green sauce (No. 473) served separately.

With Caper Sauce.—Prepare, cook and dress it as for the above; serve separately a caper sauce (No. 441).

← No. 1705 Leg of Lamb a la Bercy Lamb No. 1707 Leg of Lamb a la Fearing, Kernel →

For the Modern Kitchen

A boiled leg of lamb with a choice of three sauces, in the French kitchen's English register. The critical change is the heat: bring the pot to a boil to seize the surface, then hold it at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil, or the outer inch will be dry and stringy before the centre is done.

Timing, and what to trust insteadFifteen minutes per pound gives 90 minutes for a 6 lb leg, which by modern taste is well past done. Use a thermometer in the thickest part away from the bone: about 145F for faintly pink, 160F for a fully cooked, sliceable texture closer to what a boiled joint of this period would have been. Expect roughly 12-15 minutes per pound at a simmer as a guide only.
Yearling lambA yearling is what a British butcher calls hoggett -- an animal between one and two years old, larger and stronger in flavour than spring lamb. Supermarket lamb is younger and smaller; a 5-7 lb leg will serve eight and will cook faster than the original assumes.
The handleCutting off the knuckle and scraping two inches of shank bone clean is a French trim, done so the joint can be carried and carved by the bone. Any butcher will do it on request. The paper frill (No. 10) is purely decorative and can be skipped.
MignonetteMignonette pepper is coarsely cracked white or black peppercorns, not ground. Crush them under a pan base; the point is the texture in the finished sauce.
Glazing boiled meat"Glaze the meat" means brushing it with meat glaze -- stock reduced to a syrup. A few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid reduced hard, or a little reduced demi-glace, does the same job and gives boiled meat a colour it otherwise lacks.
The three saucesEspagnole (No. 414) is the old brown mother sauce, built on brown roux and veal stock; a good demi-glace is the nearest thing on sale. Green sauce (No. 473) is a separate cross-reference in Ranhofer and is not necessarily an Italian-style salsa verde; check the numbered recipe before assuming. Caper sauce (No. 441) is the classic English partner to boiled leg of mutton or lamb.
Save the brothThe vegetables and herb bundle flavour a considerable quantity of liquid. Strain and keep it: it makes the base for the caper or espagnole sauce, and a better soup afterwards than the joint suggests.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his working encyclopedia of that kitchen. The name "a la Britannia" is the tell: boiled leg of mutton with caper sauce was a fixture of nineteenth-century English dining, plain enough that French cooks treated it as a national dish to be quoted rather than invented. Ranhofer's move is to keep the English method -- boil the joint, sauce it separately -- while offering three sauces from his own repertoire and dressing the bone with a paper frill.