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Lamb Chops (Monte Carlo Trim thinly cut)
(Monte Carlo.) Trim 8 thinly cut chops from the leg, add some parsley, mace, a piece of butter, and sufficient milk to cover and simmer, in a closed pan, for 1 hour. Drain the chops, dip each in bread-crumbs and yolk of egg, and fry in butter. Thicken the milk with flour and butter, yolk of an egg, and flavoring of lemon juice, pepper, and salt, strain it over the chops, which can be arranged in a circle round green peas or fresh beans.
A milk-braised, crumbed and fried lamb chop with a velouté-style sauce made from the braising milk. The whole thing hinges on the sauce: once the egg yolk and lemon juice go in, the milk must never boil.
- The sauce is the difficultyWhisk the yolk with a ladle of the hot thickened milk first, then return it to the pan off the heat. Add the lemon juice last, off the heat as well — acid plus a boiling dairy sauce plus egg gives you curds, not a coating.
- "Chops from the leg"These are leg steaks, cut across the leg through the bone, not rib or loin chops. Ask for thin leg steaks about 1/2 inch thick, or substitute thin shoulder chops, which take the long braise well.
- One hour in milkAn hour of gentle simmering is right for shoulder or a thicker leg steak, but very thin chops will be dry and stringy well before that. Keep the liquid at a bare tremble and check at 35-40 minutes; the meat should be tender but still holding together for the frying.
- "Closed pan"A lidded saucepan or sauté pan on the stovetop, not an oven dish. The milk needs to stay just below a simmer, so use a heavy pan and the lowest workable heat — milk scorches on thin metal.
- MaceThe outer covering of nutmeg, sold ground or as whole blades. Two blades or a scant 1/4 teaspoon ground is plenty for a pint of milk; more turns the sauce medicinal.
- Breading orderDip in the beaten yolk first, then the crumbs, whatever the sequence in the text — the egg is the glue. Pat the drained chops dry before coating or nothing will stick.
- Frying in butterMilk-damp crumbs in whole butter brown fast and burn faster. Use clarified butter, or butter with a spoonful of neutral oil, over medium heat.
- Sufficient milk to coverFor eight thin chops in a wide pan that is roughly 2 to 3 cups. Reduce it a little before thickening if it tastes weak; the flour-and-butter thickening should give a sauce that just coats a spoon.
- YieldEight chops serve four. The circle of peas or young beans in the centre is the whole garnish, so allow about a pound of shelled peas.
With a Saucepan Over the Sea belongs to a small genre of turn-of-the-century American books built from recipes collected abroad, and its titles are labelled by place rather than by author — hence the parenthetical "(Monte Carlo.)". Monte Carlo in that era meant the Casino and the grand hotels around it. Milk as a braising medium for lamb or mutton is older than the fashion for Riviera cooking and appears across northern Europe as a way of softening strong or elderly meat; the milk both tenderises and becomes the sauce, which is why nothing here is thrown away. The green ring of peas or beans in the centre of the platter is often said to be a period presentation for a circle of cutlets.