Home › The World's Kitchen › Lamb Chops Breaded, Macedoine
Lamb Chops Breaded, Macedoine
Neatly trim and flatten six nice French lamb chops, season all around with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper, lightly roll in flour, dip in beaten egg and roll in bread crumbs. Thoroughly heat two tablespoons lard in a sautoire, add chops one beside another, gently fry for five minutes on each side and dress on a hot dish one overlapping another. Dress with a macedoine garnishing in centre, pour a gill hot tomato sauce around, adjust a curled paper at end bone of each chop and serve.
A straightforward breaded chop, but three of the terms in it have fallen out of use and the fat quantity is optimistic for the coating.
- GillHalf a cup, so about 4 fl oz of tomato sauce poured around the base of the dish rather than over the crumbs.
- SautoireA straight-sided sauté pan, wider than deep. Any heavy skillet works; use one large enough to hold all six chops without crowding, or fry in two batches so the crumb crust browns instead of steaming.
- French lamb chopsRib chops with the bone scraped clean an inch or two from the meat — what a butcher now calls Frenched. Ask for them cut from a rack; a well-trimmed loin chop substitutes, though there is no bone end to dress.
- MacedoineA mixture of vegetables cut in small even dice, classically carrot, turnip, green beans and peas, boiled separately then bound with a little butter. Cook each component to its own doneness and combine warm.
- Two tablespoons lardBarely enough for a breaded surface; expect dry patches. Use four or five tablespoons of lard, clarified butter or a neutral oil, enough to film the pan generously, and add more between batches.
- Frying timeFive minutes a side over moderate heat suits a chop cut a good inch thick. Thin chops will be overdone well before the crumbs colour — cut them thick, or shorten to three minutes a side.
- Curled paperThe paper frill on the bone end, once standard restaurant dressing. Entirely decorative and easily left off.
- YieldSix chops serves three as a main course, or six as one course of a longer menu.
This is plated French service written out for an American household: macédoine, sautoire and the paper frill all come straight from the professional French restaurant vocabulary. The name macédoine — a mixture of diced vegetables or fruits — is generally traced to the idea of Macedonia as a patchwork of peoples under Alexander, and by the nineteenth century it was standard garnish shorthand in French cookbooks.