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Ragout of Mutton, Fermiere
Cut four pounds of mutton, from the neck part, into pieces one and a half inches square. Heat three tablespoons lard in a saucepan, add the mutton, season with one and a half teaspoons salt and half teaspoon white pepper, and cook to a light brown. Remove all the fat from the pan and sprinkle three tablespoons flour over the meat; stir with a wooden spoon while cooking for two minutes. Moisten with a half pint water and a pint pure tomato juice; lightly mix and briskly boil for three minutes. Pick up the pieces of mutton with a fork and place in another saucepan. Strain in the gravy and set the pan on the fire. Season with half teaspoon salt, add two finely minced carrots, six very small onions lightly browned in butter, the two ounces of cooked pork left over from yesterday, cutting it in small quarter-inch square pieces; two medium, peeled, raw potatoes cut in large olive forms. Tie together two branches of parsley, two branches of chervil, one bay leaf, two cloves and one bean sound, peeled garlic and add to the ragout; gently mix. Cover the pan, boil for five minutes, then set in the oven for one hour. Remove, skim the fat from the surface, take out the tied herbs, add three tablespoons of cooked green peas, mix a little, pour into a deep, hot dish and send to the table.
A farmhouse-style braise that assumes two things a 1906 kitchen had and a modern one does not: real mutton and yesterday's cooked pork sitting in the larder. Both are easily worked around.
- Mutton and the cutMutton is sheep over about two years old, stronger in flavour and much tougher than lamb. Neck is the classic braising cut; substitute lamb shoulder or lamb neck, bone-in for preference, and expect the flavour to be milder and the cooking time shorter.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A covered braise of this sort belongs at 325-350F. Anything hotter and the liquid boils rather than simmers, which tightens the meat.
- Cooking timeOne hour will do for lamb shoulder; genuine mutton neck wants closer to two, until a fork slides in without resistance. Judge by the meat, not the clock.
- Add the potatoes latePotatoes given a full hour in a braise may soften and begin to break up into the gravy. If you want them to hold their shape cleanly, add them for the last 25-30 minutes.
- "One bean sound, peeled garlic"A garbled rendering of one clove of garlic, sound and peeled, tied into the herb bundle so it can be lifted out. It is one clove, not one head.
- "Large olive forms"Potatoes turned with a knife into small football shapes, roughly the size of an olive but larger. Even-sized chunks cook at the same rate and serve the same purpose.
- The leftover porkThe wording, 'the two ounces of cooked pork left over from yesterday', implies the cook is expected to have cooked pork already on hand. Diced cooked pork shoulder, a scrap of ham, or blanched salt pork all fill the role: it is there for salt and depth, not bulk.
- MeasuresA half pint is one cup, a pint two cups. Total liquid is three cups, which should come most of the way up the meat but not cover it.
- ChervilRarely stocked fresh now. A little flat-leaf parsley with a few tarragon leaves gives the same faintly aniseed note; plain parsley alone is acceptable.
- YieldFour pounds of neck serves six generously as a main course with bread.
Fermière is French kitchen shorthand for "the farmwife's way" — a garnish of root vegetables and small onions, cut plainly and cooked in the dish rather than separately, as against the trimmed and glazed garnishes of restaurant service. The instruction to use "the two ounces of cooked pork left over from yesterday" is the most revealing line here: it points to a household economy in which nothing cooked was wasted. Mutton was widely eaten in Britain, and to a lesser extent in the United States, well into the twentieth century, lamb being the more expensive young animal; the long braise with flour-thickened gravy and a bouquet of parsley, bay and cloves is a standard treatment for a cut that does not reward roasting. Modern Anglophone markets sell almost no mutton, a shift generally traced to the postwar decades, which is why the dish now reads as a lamb stew.