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Balotine of Lamb, Soubise
Carefully bone a shoulder of lamb entirely. Season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and saltspoon grated nutmeg. Place in a mortar two skinned sausages, two chopped shallots, a half bean chopped garlic, one ounce raw, chopped beef marrow, a half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, three tablespoons bread crumbs, one egg yolk, a half gill cream, half teaspoon salt and saltspoon each cayenne and ground thyme. Pound the whole well for five minutes, spread the force on the inside part of the shoulder, fold up and tightly tie around with strings. Place in a saucepan with one each sliced carrot, onion and leek, a bean garlic, branch parsley, bay leaf, clove, sprig thyme, tablespoon allspice and sprig marjoram. Cover the balotine with cold water, season with a level tablespoon salt and teaspoon pepper, cover the pan and let gently boil for one hour and thirty minutes. Lift up the balotine, untie and dress on a dish. Pour a Soubise sauce and sprinkle a little freshly chopped parsley over the balotine and serve.
A boned, stuffed and poached lamb shoulder — the technique is sound, but the measures and a few of the ingredients belong to a 1920s professional kitchen.
- The hinge: keep it at a bare simmer"let gently boil" in books of this period generally means water barely trembling rather than a true rolling boil. A hard boil can loosen the forcemeat at the seams and leave the shoulder stringy rather than tender.
- Archaic measuresA gill is half a cup, so a half gill of cream is 4 tablespoons. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon. "A half bean garlic" and "a bean garlic" mean a half clove and a clove.
- Beef marrowAn ounce of raw marrow gives the stuffing its richness and moisture. Ask a butcher for marrow bones and scoop it out cold; softened unsalted butter is a common substitute if none is available.
- Skinned sausagesMost likely a plain fresh pork sausage squeezed from its casing rather than a heavily seasoned link. Anything strongly spiced will fight the nutmeg, thyme and cayenne already in the force.
- Mortar or food processorFive minutes of pounding is to make the forcemeat homogeneous and slightly tacky so it holds together when sliced. Short pulses in a processor do the same job in under a minute; stop before it warms and separates.
- A tablespoon of allspiceAlmost certainly whole berries going into the poaching liquid rather than ground, given the whole spices and sprigs listed alongside it; ground allspice at that volume would overwhelm everything. Tie the aromatics in cheesecloth if you want to fish them out easily.
- Timing and donenessNinety minutes suits a shoulder of about 3 lb boned. Check the centre of the forcemeat reads 165F; a thicker roll may want another twenty minutes.
- Soubise sauceNot given here — it is a béchamel worked with a heavy quantity of onions stewed soft in butter, then sieved or blended. Make it while the balotine poaches.
- Yield and servingA boned shoulder serves six to eight. Rest the roll ten minutes before untying, then slice across in rounds so each portion shows a spiral of forcemeat, and sauce the plate rather than drowning the meat.
A ballotine (the book's "balotine" is a common older spelling) takes its name from the French balle, a bundle — a boned joint stuffed, rolled and tied into a compact parcel, conventionally distinguished from a galantine by being served hot, though the rule is a rough one and ballotines are served cold too. Shoulder is the classic candidate because boning it removes the awkward blade bone that makes carving miserable, and the resulting flat sheet of meat is ideal for spreading forcemeat. Sauce Soubise is generally traced to the 18th-century Prince de Soubise, whose kitchen gave its name to the onion purée thickened with béchamel; onion with lamb is an old and durable pairing across French and English cooking. The dish's confident shorthand — a saltspoon of this, a bean of garlic, a gill of cream — assumes a cook already fluent in the professional kitchen's vocabulary.