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Breaded Mutton Chops, Bruxelloise
Trim the bones and neatly flatten six fine tender mutton chops. Season them all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; lightly roll in flour, then in beaten-up egg and lastly in fresh bread crumbs. Heat three tablespoons lard in a frying pan. Arrange the chops in the pan, one beside another, and briskly fry for five minutes on each side; then set in a hot oven for ten minutes. Remove, drain well, pour in half gill hot demi-glace in the centre of a hot dish, dress the chops around crown shape. Place the Brussels sprouts in the centre of the chops and serve.
A straightforward breaded chop, but the original assumes a professional kitchen with a demi-glace already on the stove and no thermometer anywhere in sight.
- Half a gillIn US measure a gill is half a cup, so half a gill is about 4 tablespoons (60 ml); by the British gill it would be nearer 70 ml. Either way it is a garnish of sauce pooled under the chops, not a gravy portion.
- "A hot oven"The recipe gives no temperature; 'hot oven' in books of this kind corresponds roughly to 400-450F/200-230C. The ten minutes there finishes the interior after the crust has set in the pan.
- Mutton, and what to use insteadTrue mutton — sheep older than a year, by some definitions over two — is rare outside halal and specialist butchers and is stronger and tougher than lamb. Lamb rib or loin chops work; if you do find mutton, expect it to want a few minutes longer in the oven.
- Cooking time and donenessFive minutes a side plus ten in the oven will take a thick chop well past pink. For lamb still pink, pull it at about 130-135F internal (medium-rare) and cut the oven stage to five minutes; a thin chop may not need the oven at all.
- LardThree tablespoons of lard is right for the flavour and the browning, but any fat stable at high heat will do — clarified butter, or a neutral oil with a knob of butter added late. Plain butter alone will burn before the crust colours.
- Breading that stays onPat the chops thoroughly dry before flouring, press the crumbs on firmly, and leave them to rest ten minutes before frying. Turn once only, with tongs on the bone rather than a fork through the crust.
- Demi-glaceA reduced brown veal stock, thickened in the classical manner. Good bought demi-glace concentrate is an honest substitute; a reduction of strong beef stock with a splash of red wine will do the same job here.
- BruxelloiseHere the name signals the Brussels sprouts, though in the classical repertoire the bruxelloise garnish often included braised endive and potatoes as well. Trim, halve any large ones, and boil or steam them 5-7 minutes so they are still firm — they sit in the centre of the dish and will hold heat while you plate.
- YieldSix chops serves three as a main course, or six as part of a longer menu of the kind this book assumes.
Names ending in -oise or -aise in a book like this are shorthand from the French professional repertoire: bruxelloise tells a cook that Brussels sprouts are on the plate, much as florentine means spinach or lyonnaise means onions. Sprouts had been associated with the vegetable gardens around Brussels since at least the eighteenth century, and by the time this recipe was written the garnish was a fixed item in the classical vocabulary rather than a regional specialty. The crown arrangement has the chops leaning bone-outward around a mound of vegetables with a spoonful of sauce beneath, the sauce already simmering in the kitchen so that a cook needed only a few tablespoons of it. Mutton rather than lamb is the period's default: older sheep were cheaper and more plentiful.