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Brochette of Lamb, Tomato Sauce
Cut out a pound and a half tender leg of lamb in half-inch-square thin pieces; cut out also the same quantity and size salted pork. Season the lamb with half teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, evenly run alternately the pork and lamb pieces on six skewers, lightly roll in a tablespoon oil, then in fresh bread crumbs, arrange on a double broiler and broil for eight minutes on each side. Remove, pour a gill of hot tomato sauce on a dish, arrange the brochette over and serve.
A straightforward skewer dish from the era when "broiling" meant a hinged wire basket held over live coals. Two things need attention: the salt pork and the cooking time.
- GillA gill is half a cup. That is enough tomato sauce to pool under six skewers, not to drown them.
- Double broilerNot a double boiler. This is a hinged wire grill that clamps the food between two grids so the whole thing can be flipped over the fire at once. A grill basket does the same job; a sheet pan under a broiler works if you turn the skewers by hand.
- Eight minutes a side is too longHalf-inch pieces of leg of lamb are cooked through in roughly six to eight minutes total over high heat. Sixteen minutes will leave them grey and dry. Pull them when the lamb is still pink at the centre, around 130-135F.
- Salted porkSalt pork today is often very heavily cured. Simmer it for five minutes and pat it dry before skewering, or the lamb's own half teaspoon of salt will be beside the point. Thick-cut unsmoked bacon is a reasonable stand-in.
- Crumbs and oilFresh crumbs, meaning soft crumbs from the inside of a loaf, not dry packaged ones. They scorch fast over direct heat, so keep the skewers moving and expect some dark patches.
- SkewersSix skewers for three pounds of meat total. Soak wooden skewers half an hour first, or use metal, which also conducts heat into the centre of the cubes.
- YieldSix skewers, so three to six servings depending on whether this is the main dish. Serve at once, since the pork fat firms up as it cools.
Brochette is simply the French word for a small skewer, and the phrase "en brochette" appears in English-language cookery writing by the later nineteenth century. The alternating fat-and-lean pattern here is part of the technique: the salt pork bastes the lamb as it renders. Filippini, Ranhofer and other contemporaries print variations on lamb or mutton brochettes with a tomato sauce or sauce Robert underneath.