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Lamb Fries, Poulette
Split in two and skin twelve small, very fresh lamb fries; plunge in quart boiling water for five minutes. Drain and cut each half in two. Heat in saucepan one and a half tablespoons melted butter, add six finely chopped shallots and cook for five minutes. Mix in two level tablespoons flour. Moisten with one gill white broth and half gill cream; mix for half minute then add the fries. Season with half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper, a saltspoon grated nutmeg and half teaspoon chopped chives; lightly mix, pour in a tablespoon sherry, mix again and let boil for five minutes. Dilute an egg yolk in a tablespoon cream and add to the saucepan, stir while heating for a minute, pour into a deep dish and serve.
A classic sauce poulette — velouté sharpened with shallot and finished with an egg-yolk liaison — built around an offal most butchers now sell only to order. The measurements are Escoffier-era and need translating.
- The hinge: never boil after the liaisonOnce the yolk and cream go in, the sauce must be held below a simmer and stirred for no more than a minute. A boil curdles the yolk and the sauce breaks into grains.
- What lamb fries areLamb testicles, sold as lamb fries, animelles or (in the American West) mountain oysters. They are usually a special order at a butcher; ask for them fresh rather than frozen if you can.
- SkinningThe tough outer membrane is often easier to remove after the five-minute blanch than before it, despite the order given here. If it resists, slit the sac, blanch, then slip the membrane off while the fries are still warm.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz), so half a gill is 2 fl oz, a quarter cup or four tablespoons. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon: two saltspoons of cayenne is half a teaspoon, which is genuinely hot — start with a quarter and adjust.
- White brothA pale, unbrowned stock, usually veal or chicken, made from blanched bones with no roasting. A light chicken stock is the closest thing on a modern shelf; avoid dark or heavily reduced stock, which muddies the colour the dish depends on.
- The rouxOne and a half tablespoons butter to two of flour is a stiff, dry roux. Cook it with the shallots for a minute or two without colour, then add the liquid gradually or it will lump.
- DonenessFive minutes at a boil after the fries go in is enough for pieces this size; they are firm and set rather than pink. Longer and they turn rubbery.
- YieldTwelve fries, quartered, will serve roughly four as a first course. Serve at once in a warmed deep dish — the sauce dulls and skins over as it cools.
Poulette is one of the standard small sauces of French classical cookery: a white velouté finished with lemon or wine, shallot, parsley and a yolk-and-cream liaison, and applied to mussels, tripe, sheep's trotters, mushrooms and organ meats. The origin of the name is not settled; the explanations that link it to the pale, chicken-broth base or to dishes of poultry are traditional rather than documented. Testicles — animelles in French, criadillas in Spanish — were unremarkable butcher's meat in Europe for centuries, and lamb fries stayed on American menus wherever sheep were raised and castrated in quantity. The blanch-skin-and-sauce method here is close to the standard period treatment for pale, delicate variety meats such as brains and sweetbreads.