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Fritadelles of Lamb, Menagere
Cut all the meat from the leg of lamb left over from yesterday in small square pieces and keep on a plate. Cut in same shape one cold, medium, boiled potato. Heat tablespoon melted butter in a frying pan, add a finely chopped, medium white onion and fry five minutes, lightly stirring meanwhile. Add the lamb and potatoes, pour in one pint of broth, season with half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons white pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg, add half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, mix well. Cover pan and let cook twenty minutes, frequently mixing meanwhile. Add four tablespoons freshly prepared bread crumbs and two egg yolks, sharply stir while heating five minutes, pour preparation into a dish and let cool off. Divide into twelve even parts, roll into oval-shaped cake forms, dip in beaten egg, then in bread crumbs. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons lard in a frying pan, arrange in the fritadelles and fry five minutes on each side. Pour one and a half gills hot tomato sauce on a dish, dress the fritadelles, one overlapping another, crown-like and serve.
A leftovers dish that behaves like a croquette: cooked lamb bound with broth, crumbs and yolk, chilled, shaped and pan-fried. The measurements are in pre-1920 kitchen units and one of the seasonings is heavy by current taste.
- Saltspoon and gillA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so three saltspoons of white pepper is 3/4 teaspoon and the nutmeg is 1/4 teaspoon. A gill is half a cup, making the tomato sauce 3/4 cup.
- Quantity of lambThe recipe assumes leftovers from a roast leg but gives no weight and only says 'small square pieces'. Roughly a pound of cooked lamb, cut small, with the one boiled potato should be about right to divide into twelve cakes.
- The hinge: chill the mixture hard"Let cool off" means cold, not warm. Spread it in a shallow dish and refrigerate at least an hour, ideally two, or the cakes will slump in the pan and the crumb coat will slide off.
- Cook the broth awayA pint of broth into a pound of meat looks like too much, and it is meant to be. The twenty minutes covered should reduce it to a thick, barely moist mass; if liquid still pools, uncover and drive it off before the crumbs and yolks go in.
- Season with restraint3/4 teaspoon white pepper for a pound of meat is assertive by modern standards. Start with half and taste the mixture before the yolks are added.
- Fat and heatLard is still available and gives the cleanest crust, but clarified butter or a neutral oil works. Medium heat, about 350F in the pan; the filling is already cooked, so the five minutes a side is only for colour and to heat through.
- YieldTwelve oval cakes, enough for four as a main course with the tomato sauce, or six as a first course.
Fritadelle is one of many spellings of a word that runs through northern and central European cookery as frikadelle or frikadeller and is generally traced to the Italian frittella, a small fried thing. Ménagère is French kitchen shorthand for "housewife's" or household style. The recipe opens by naming its own source of supply -- "the leg of lamb left over from yesterday" -- which places it in the tradition of the rechauffé, the made-over dish that formed a substantial section of many large cookbooks of the period. Binding cold meat with reduced broth, crumbs and egg yolk, then chilling, breading and frying, is the standard croquette method of the classical repertoire; only the oval shape and the crown-like arrangement on the sauce distinguish it.