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Brochette of Lamb Diable, Buchan
Cut one and a half pounds raw lamb from a leg into inch-square pieces quarter of an inch thick. Season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon paprika, and turn them well in seasoning. Cut same quantity of lean raw bacon into same size but exceedingly thin, and arrange on six skewers alternately, evenly divided. Turn well in a tablespoon of oil on a plate, arrange on a double broiler and broil for six minutes on each side, then remove, evenly spread a devilled butter around them, roll in bread crumbs and broil again for two minutes on each side, dress on a hot dish, decorate with a little watercress and serve.
A skewered grill of lamb and bacon, finished with devilled butter and crumbs. The method is sound; the equipment names and one of the quantities need translating.
- "Double broiler" means a hinged wire grillNot a double boiler. It is a two-sided hinged wire basket that clamps food between it so the whole lot can be flipped at once. A modern gas or charcoal grill, or an oven broiler with the skewers on a rack set 4-5 inches from the element, does the same job.
- The bacon quantity"Same quantity" may mean a pound and a half of bacon to a pound and a half of lamb, or simply the same number of pieces; the weight reading would be more than the skewers will hold. Cut the slices as thin as the recipe insists and use perhaps half a pound, folded between the lamb; the bacon is there for fat and salt, not bulk.
- Devilled butterUnexplained here. Devilled butter is generally softened butter worked with dry mustard, cayenne, a little Worcestershire or anchovy, salt and lemon. Make it ahead and keep it cool enough to spread without running off the hot meat.
- Total time is generousSix minutes a side, then two more each side after crumbing, is sixteen minutes for quarter-inch pieces of lamb. Expect well done. For pink lamb, cut the first stage to about three minutes a side and let the crumb stage do the rest.
- The hinge: crumb onto warm butterThe crumbs must go on while the devilled butter is soft and clinging, and then straight back under high heat. If the meat cools, the butter sets, the crumbs fall off in the pan and you lose the whole point of the finish.
- SkewersMetal skewers conduct heat into the meat and will not char. Soak wooden ones for half an hour and keep the exposed ends out of the flame.
- SaltA full teaspoon of salt on the lamb plus salted bacon plus a seasoned butter stacks up quickly. Season the lamb lightly and correct at the end.
- YieldSix skewers, so six as a first course or three as a main with the watercress and something starchy alongside.
"Diable" or "devilled" is English kitchen shorthand, generally traced to the late eighteenth century, for anything made fiercely hot with mustard and cayenne, usually spread on meat and finished with breadcrumbs under a fierce heat -- devilled kidneys, devilled bones, devilled biscuits. Alexander Filippini, longtime chef of Delmonico's in New York, filled The International Cook Book (1906) with thousands of short entries of exactly this kind, each tagged with a place or personal name to distinguish it from its neighbours; Buchan is a district of Aberdeenshire, though the book never explains its attributions and the label is best read as a house designation rather than evidence of Scottish origin. What the recipe does show plainly is the professional grill cook's habit of building a skewer in alternating lean and fat, so the bacon bastes the lamb as it renders -- a technique older than any of the names attached to it.