Home › The World's Kitchen › Broiled Lamb Fries, Tartare Sauce
Broiled Lamb Fries, Tartare Sauce
Cut twelve very fresh lamb fries in halves, skin, scald in boiling water three minutes, remove and drain. Season with half teaspoon salt and three saltspoons pepper, lightly roll in melted butter or oil, then slightly roll in bread crumbs, arrange on a double broiler and broil three minutes on each side. Dress on a hot dish, decorate with a little parsley, and serve with a tartare sauce separately.
A short, plainly written recipe whose only real difficulty is sourcing. Everything else is a matter of knowing what the old measures and equipment mean.
- What lamb fries areLamb testicles, sold as lamb fries, animelles or (in some markets) mountain oysters. Order them from a halal or ethnic butcher, or a farm shop in spring; they will almost never be in a supermarket case.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so three of them is three-quarters of a teaspoon of pepper against half a teaspoon of salt. That is a heavily peppered seasoning by modern taste; halve the pepper if you prefer.
- The hinge: skin them properlyThe tough outer membrane must come off cleanly or the fries will curl and turn leathery under heat. Split each one lengthwise first, then peel the membrane back from the cut edge. Note that the recipe skins before it scalds, so the three-minute scald is not what loosens the membrane here.
- Double broilerA hinged wire basket that clamped the food between two grids and was turned whole over the coals. A grill basket does the same job; failing that, use a very hot ridged pan or a heated broiler rack set close to the element.
- Freshness is not optional"Very fresh" carries weight here. Offal of this kind spoils fast and off odours are unmistakable. Use it the day you buy it, or freeze it at once.
- TimingThree minutes a side suits thin halves under fierce heat, long enough to brown the crumbs. The recipe states no thickness; anything thicker will need a little more, and longer cooking will dry them.
- The tartare sauceThe sauce of this period is a mayonnaise built from raw yolks with capers, gherkins, shallot and parsley folded in. If you are making it from scratch and serving anyone vulnerable, use pasteurised eggs.
- YieldTwelve fries halved gives twenty-four pieces, which is a first course for four or a light main for two.
"Fries" is an old name for the testicles of a young animal, sold under that name in butchers' shops on both sides of the Atlantic well into the twentieth century; the connection with frying is commonly offered but is not certain. Lamb fries were a seasonal by-product: lambs were castrated in spring, and the trimmings went to market with the rest of the offal at a time when a household expecting economy from its butcher used every part on offer. The dish belongs to the same tradition as French animelles, and its appearance here — crumbed, broiled in a hinged basket, garnished with parsley and sent out with a bowl of tartare sauce alongside — is restaurant service of its day. In American usage the same item is also known as Rocky Mountain oysters, a name that survives at county fairs long after "fries" left the butcher's window.