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Lamb Steaks, Devilled
Procure six small lamb steaks, cut from a tender leg of lamb, of four ounces each. Neatly flatten them. Mix on a plate a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and a tablespoon oil; repeatedly roll the steaks in the seasoning, arrange on a double broiler and broil for four minutes on each side. Remove, spread a devilled butter over them, then roll in bread crumbs; replace on the broiler and broil again for two minutes on each side. Pour a devilled sauce over a hot dish, place the steaks over the sauce and serve.
A straightforward grill dish that assumes you already have two other preparations on hand. Read the whole thing before you start.
- Two missing components"Devilled butter" and "devilled sauce" are not described here and must be looked up elsewhere in the book. Devilled preparations of this period are generally built on mustard and cayenne: a compound butter worked with mustard and cayenne, and a sharpened brown sauce. Check the book's own entries, and have both made and the sauce hot before the meat goes on.
- "Double broiler"A hinged wire gridiron that clamps the meat between two grids so it can be turned as a unit over coals. A modern equivalent is a grill basket over charcoal, or simply a very hot ridged pan or gas grill, turning by hand.
- Cut of meatFour-ounce steaks cut from the leg are what a butcher now sells as lamb leg steaks or boneless sirloin chops, about half an inch thick after flattening. Two per person is a portion, so this serves three; as part of a larger menu, six people.
- Total cooking timeTwelve minutes across both stages is a lot for a half-inch steak and will take leg meat well past pink. If you want it rosy, cut the first stage to two minutes a side and use the crumb stage to finish, pulling at about 130F internal.
- The crumb stage is the hingeThe butter must be soft enough to spread and the crumbs pressed on firmly, or they fall off in the grill. Use dry fine crumbs, not fresh, and keep the second exposure short and slightly further from the heat — the butter drips, the fat flares, and crumbs scorch in seconds.
- White pepperConventional in professional cookery of the period, where white pepper was preferred to avoid dark flecks. Black pepper works here and no one will notice.
- Sauce under, not overThe sauce is poured onto the hot platter and the steaks set on top so the crust stays crisp. Warm the platter properly or the sauce will skin over before it reaches the table.
"Devilling" — coating meat, fish or bones with mustard, cayenne and pepper and giving it a fierce turn at the fire — was well established in British cookery by the early nineteenth century. It began as a way of using cold roast meat and grilled bones at supper or after the theatre, and it had graduated into a made dish in its own right, with a compound butter and a matching sauce built to the same formula. The technique here — season, sear, coat with butter and crumbs, return to the fire — is followed by cross-references to butters and sauces made up separately rather than for this dish alone.