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Mutton Steaks, Carozzi
Cut three steaks from a tender leg of mutton, three-quarters of a pound each, evenly season all around with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and two saltspoons cayenne. Heat two tablespoons melted butter in an earthen casserole, place steaks in it, and briskly fry on each side for five minutes on range. Take up with fork and keep on a plate, then add six finely chopped shallots to pan with chopped rind of a sound lemon, cook three minutes, then mix in a tablespoon flour. Moisten with a gill claret and one and a half gills water, mix well, then add half pint raw, fresh, tender peas, half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley, a bean chopped garlic, the leaves from a branch of chervil, three saltspoons salt and half teaspoon sugar. Mix well, let come to a boil, then add steaks, tightly cover pan, set in oven one hour, remove and serve without uncovering.
A braise dressed up as a fry: the steaks are seared hard, then finished slowly in a claret-and-pea gravy. The original assumes mutton, an earthenware pan and an oven whose temperature nobody bothered to state.
- The hinge: the peasFresh peas cannot survive an hour of braising — they will be grey and mealy. Build and season the sauce without them, braise the meat, and stir the peas in for the last eight to ten minutes so they finish bright.
- Mutton, and what to use insteadMutton means sheep over about two years old, stronger in flavour and firmer in texture; it is sold in some halal and specialty butchers but rarely elsewhere. Leg-of-lamb steaks of the same 12 oz weight work, though they cook faster and want closer to 40 minutes in the oven.
- UnitsA gill is half a cup, so the liquid is 1/2 cup claret and 3/4 cup water. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon — two saltspoons of cayenne is a genuinely fierce 1/2 teaspoon for three steaks. A "bean" of garlic means a piece roughly the size of a bean, i.e. about one small clove.
- Oven heatNone is given. A moderate oven, around 325F, suits a covered braise of this length; because the recipe calls for the pan to be tightly covered, little liquid should be lost, so check once and add a splash of water only if it looks dry.
- The casseroleIn 1906 a "casserole" is the cooking vessel, not a baked dish, and an earthen one was expected to go straight onto the range. Modern glazed earthenware will often crack over direct flame — use a heavy enamelled cast-iron pot for the searing and the braise alike.
- Lemon rind"Chopped rind of a sound lemon" means the zest only, pared thin and chopped; include the white pith and the sauce turns bitter over an hour.
- ChervilAnise-scented and hard to find fresh; its flavour is destroyed by long cooking anyway. Add it with the peas at the end, or substitute a little tarragon and parsley.
- ServingThree steaks of three-quarters of a pound each serve three generously, or four if carved off the bone. The instruction to serve without uncovering presumably aims to keep the aroma of the wine and herbs in the pot until it reaches the table.
The International Cook Book (1906) was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long associated with Delmonico's in New York as a chef. Like many restaurant cookbooks of the period, it attaches a proper name to a garnish or treatment so it can be ordered in a word. "Carozzi" is one of hundreds of such tags in the book, and it is not documented as a place or a classical garnish; the person or reference behind it is unknown. What the dish records more reliably is the standing of mutton in the period: sheep were kept for wool as much as meat, and older, stronger carcasses reached the table routinely. Cooks handled that assertiveness with shallots, garlic, claret and a bracing amount of cayenne, then braised the meat until it yielded. As lamb became the market's preference, mutton receded from English-language cookbooks, taking recipes like this one with it.