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Haricot
2 lbs. best end neck of mutton 2 ozs. (4 tablespoonfuls) butter or drippings 6 diced onions 1 tablespoonful flour 1 bunch herbs Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 pint (1 cup) cooked peas or beans 2 boiled carrots 2 boiled turnips 1 tablespoonful mushroom catchup Water Trim off some of the fat, remove all the unnecessary bone, cut the mutton into rather thin chops, and put them into a frying-pan with the butter or drippings. Fry them a pale brown, but do not cook them enough for eating. Take up the mutton and put it in the bottom of a stewpan. Fry the onions slightly in the same fat as the mutton was browned in, but do not allow them to take any color. Sprinkle the flour over the meat, add the onions, drained, cover with cold water, and bring to the boil, occasionally skimming; then put in the herbs and simmer for two hours. Add the carrots and turnips cut in slices, the peas or beans, catchup, and seasonings.
A brown mutton stew of the old English school, built in two stages: a long simmer for the meat, then vegetables that are already cooked stirred in at the end. Two things decide whether it works — a genuine browning of the chops, and restraint with the final additions.
- The hinge: brown, then stopThe chops are fried only to a pale brown and deliberately left underdone, because they get two hours of simmering afterwards. Browning them hard here, or letting the onions colour in the same fat, gives a bitter, over-reduced gravy.
- Best end neck of muttonThis is the rib end of the neck — what a modern butcher sells as lamb rack or rib chops, and what becomes cutlets when trimmed. Mutton (sheep over two years) is rare outside halal and specialist butchers; 2 lb of lamb shoulder chops or thick rib chops behaves the same, though lamb is milder and will be tender well before the two hours are up. Check at 75-90 minutes.
- Six diced onionsSix onions for 2 lb of meat reads as a large quantity today; if the onions in view were smaller than modern supermarket ones, the total would be nearer a pound than six big ones. Dicing rather than slicing will also help them break down into the gravy.
- Mushroom catchupNot tomato ketchup. Mushroom catchup is a thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquor, still sold in Britain and easily replaced by a tablespoon of mushroom soy, or Worcestershire sauce with a little soy. Add it at the end as written — its flavour is volatile.
- Bunch of herbsA bouquet garni: parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string, sometimes with a strip of celery. Tie it so it can be lifted out before serving.
- Half pint of peas or beansThe book glosses its own half pint as one cup, so it is using American measure. Cooked dried haricot beans are one option; frozen peas will do but need only a minute or two of heat.
- The final additionsCarrots, turnips and pulses go in already boiled, so they want five to ten minutes to warm through and take up gravy — no longer, or the turnip collapses and the peas grey. Season at this point, after the liquid has reduced, not before.
- Gravy and yieldOne tablespoon of flour over 2 lb of meat gives a thin, glossy sauce rather than a thick stew; if it is still watery after two hours, lift the meat and boil the liquid down. Serves four with potatoes or bread.
The name has nothing to do with haricot beans, despite the beans in the ingredient list. The origin of the name is uncertain, though a haricot of mutton is often traced to the old French verb harigoter, to cut into pieces, and the dish appears in English cookery books from the eighteenth century onward as chopped mutton stewed brown with root vegetables. The beans are usually said to have arrived later, pulled in by the sound of the word — a piece of folk etymology that, on the traditional account, eventually rewrote the recipe. What dates this particular version is the assumption of a well-stocked larder of leftovers: carrots, turnips and pulses all go in already boiled, which is how a cook working from yesterday's vegetables would have made it. Mushroom catchup, the savoury bottled liquor that did the work now done by stock cubes and soy sauce, was a standard shelf item in Anglo-American kitchens for well over a century before commercial tomato ketchup pushed it aside.