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Broiled Family Rack of Lamb
Procure a rack of tender lamb of about three-pounds weight with full breast bones; entirely remove the spinal bone and neatly trim all around. Carefully crack the bones in the middle of the rack without cutting the meat. Then with a knife make criss-crosses all over the surface of the skin. Mix on a plate a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and a tablespoon oil; thoroughly roll the rack in the seasoning till all absorbed. Arrange on a double broiler and broil on a rather slow fire for fifteen minutes on each side. Remove, place on a large dish and keep hot.
Plunge twelve small peeled potatoes into a quart boiling water with a teaspoon salt and boil for thirty minutes. Drain on a sieve. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a black frying pan; add the potatoes, fry all around until a nice golden colour and arrange all around the rack. Spread a cabaret sauce over the serve.
N. B. Potatoes and cabaret sauce can be prepared before the rack.
A live-fire recipe from a chef trained on coal ranges, written when a "rack" meant the whole forequarter section including the breast, not the trimmed eight-bone roast sold today. Two things need translating: the cut and the fire.
- The cutA three-pound rack "with full breast bones" is the rib section with the breast flap still attached — closer to what a butcher now sells as a lamb breast plus rack. A supermarket rack of lamb, frenched and trimmed, weighs 1.5 to 2 lb and will be cooked through long before 15 minutes a side. Ask a butcher for an untrimmed rack with the breast on, or accept that you are cooking a smaller piece and cut the time roughly in half.
- Double broilerNot a double boiler. This is a hinged wire broiler — two grids that clamp the meat between them so it can be turned as one piece over coals. A folding fish grill or hinged hamburger basket does the same job on a modern grill.
- "A rather slow fire"Moderate, settled coals with grey ash and no flame, the meat set 6 to 8 inches above them. Over a gas grill, medium-low with the lid up. The fat in the breast will flare if the fire is hot, and the recipe depends on a long, gentle broil.
- DonenessFifteen minutes a side over a slow fire suits a thick, fatty rack and would likely land past medium, which period cookery generally favoured for lamb. For a modern trimmed rack, pull it at 130-135F at the centre of the meat and rest it 10 minutes.
- Cracking the bonesCracking through the ribs at the middle of the rack without cutting the meat lets the piece flex flat in the broiler and makes it carvable at table. A cleaver tapped along the rib line does it; a butcher will do it for you if asked.
- Scoring the skinThe criss-crossing is on the fat cap, not the meat. Cut just through the fat in a diamond pattern so it renders and takes the salt, pepper and oil rubbed in afterwards.
- The potatoesThirty minutes of boiling will overcook most modern small potatoes. Parboil them 12 to 15 minutes, until a knife meets slight resistance, drain them dry, then fry in butter in a heavy iron pan (the "black frying pan") until golden.
- Cabaret sauceA separate preparation called for from elsewhere in the book; its composition is not given here. Any piquant brown sauce will serve; the note that it can be made ahead is sound, since the rack needs continuous attention.
- YieldThe original is silent. A full three-pound untrimmed rack with the potatoes feeds four.
The International Cook Book (1906) is the work of Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe shows the habits of that kitchen scaled down for a household. Broiling over a slow coal fire in a hinged double broiler was a common method for chops and racks before gas and electric ranges made overhead broiling routine, and it explains the long timing below. The finishing touch, a spoonful of sauce over meat already plated with a ring of fried potatoes, is pure late-nineteenth-century service, and the closing note that the garnish and sauce should be ready in advance is the voice of a man used to timing a hot dish to the minute.