French Provincial Cooking (84 page)

Slices of shoulder of lamb can be stewed in the same way, allowing 1
to 2 hours’ cooking time. There should be enough for four.

‘She was a capital cook; and her method of boning and rolling up a shoulder of mutton like a large Bologna sausage was a mystery which cost me a considerably long post-prandial lucubration to penetrate.’

GEORGE MUSGRAVE, writing of the Hôtel du Louvre at Pont-Audemer in
A Ramble Through Normandy
, 1855

 

The boning and rolling of a shoulder of lamb or mutton is not really such a mystery as it seemed to George Musgrave; any decent butcher will do it for you, and the system certainly does make the joint very simple to carve. This particular way of cooking a boned shoulder owes its name to the fact that, like the
carbonnade nîmoise,
it was a dish which would be prepared at home and carried to the bakery to be cooked in the oven after the bread was baked. It makes an excellent and quite economical dish for a large household.

The boned shoulder will weigh about 4 lb. Press salt, pepper, chopped fresh thyme or marjoram, and for those who like it, garlic, into the inside of the rolled meat. People who like the flavour of garlic without wishing to find it in the meat might try putting a clove or two under the joint in the pan while it is cooking. In this way it will flavour the gravy and the potatoes, but will scarcely be perceptible in the meat itself. Personally, I find a little garlic with lamb as indispensable as others find mint sauce.

Melt an ounce of butter and a tablespoon of oil in a large pan; brown the seasoned meat in it. Transfer it to an oven dish; put in the garlic and 2 Ib. of whole new potatoes. In the same fat fry a sliced onion until it turns golden; pour over 2 teacups of meat
bouillon
or stock, which can have been made from the bones of the joint, cook a minute or so and pour over the meat and potatoes. Cover with a buttered greaseproof paper and the lid of the dish. Cook in a slow oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F., for 2 hours or a little under if you like the meat faintly pink. Before serving salt the potatoes and sprinkle with more fresh herbs. The stock, reduced a little by fast boiling, will serve as a sauce.

A very economical meat dish which is, or used to be, popular at the midday meal in French restaurants; it is served as a hot hors-d’œuvre rather than as a main course.

Ingredients for four to six helpings are a breast of lamb, a large onion, a bouquet of herbs, 2 carrots, and optionally 3 oz. of a cheap cut of boiling bacon bought in the piece. For the second cooking: mustard, a large egg, 2 oz. of fine breadcrumbs per side of breast of lamb, melted butter.

Arrange the sliced vegetables and the bacon and the bouquet in a shallow baking dish; on top lay the breast of lamb, neatly divided in two by the butcher. Season it, add 2 soup ladles of water (or meat stock if available). Cover with oiled paper or foil and a lid.

Cook in a very slow oven, Gas No. 2, 310 deg. F., for 3 hours. Remove the meat and leave until cool enough to handle. Pour the stock through a strainer into a bowl. Remove the bones from the meat. Most of them will slip out quite easily and the rest can be eased out with the help of a small, sharp knife. Put the meat on a flat dish, cover with paper and a weighted board. When absolutely cold, slice the meat into bias-cut strips about an inch wide. Spread them with mustard. Coat them with egg and then with bread-crumbs. Leave on a wire grid for this coating to dry and set. When the time comes to cook them put them in the grilling-pan, pour over them a little melted butter and put them in a moderate oven until they are quite hot, then place them under the grill, or better still, on one of those iron grill plates which are heated directly over a gas burner or electric hot-plate. Let them brown rapidly, turning them very carefully. Once should be sufficient. The egg and breadcrumb coating should be dry, crisp, and even here and there slightly scorched with the characteristic black grill marks characteristic of French grilled food. Serve them on a hot dish with watercress, wedges of lemon and, if you like, a
sauce tartare
or vinaigrette.

Breast of lamb prepared in this way is a wonderfully cheap delicacy for those prepared to take the trouble, admittedly considerable, of preparing it. It is sometimes called
épigrammes d’agneau
, but
épigrammes
should really include fried lamb cutlets alternating in the dish with the pieces of breast.

To prepare the brains for cooking, first put them to steep in plenty of cold water for a minimum of two hours, the water being changed three or four times. After this preliminary steeping, during which most of the blood will have soaked out of the brains, every scrap of the thin skin covering the brains must be removed, and the brains put back to soak in tepid water, so that the rest of the blood will dissolve and seep out.

For 6 sheep’s brains, prepare a
court-bouillon
of 1
pints of water, a teaspoon of salt, an onion, 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar and a bouquet of herbs, all simmered together for
hour. Leave to cool, and strain. In this liquid poach the brains very gently for 15 minutes. Drain them carefully, put them in a hot serving dish, sprinkle them with parsley, and over them pour 3 oz. of butter cooked in a saucepan or small frying-pan until it is turning deep hazel-nut colour; in the same pan quickly boil a couple of tablespoons of vinegar and pour this, too, sizzling over the brains. This is a better way of presenting
cervelles au beurre noir
than the more usual system of having the brains ready cooked, and then frying them.

Calf’s brains are prepared in precisely the same way but need 20 to 25 minutes’ poaching. They can be sliced into neat scallops for serving.

While the main defect of the cheaper cuts of beef is their tendency to dryness the very opposite might be said of the second- and third-grade cuts of the pig. An excess of fat on the fore-end, the blade-bone, spare rib and belly of pork makes these cuts appreciably cheaper than leg and loin, which are the prime roasting and grilling pieces. Much depends, of course, on the breed and the feeding of the pig, and in these days of aversion to fat meat a good deal has been done to ensure the maximum of lean, even on the fat cuts. For instance, belly of pork now tends to contain much more lean in proportion to fat than would have been the case on a similar cut some thirty or forty years ago.

In the old recipes the fat cuts of pork, usually salted, are generally eked out with enormous quantities of dried peas, potatoes, barley, rice and so on, to make thick soups or stews further thickened with quantities of flour—dishes which nowadays we should find horribly stodgy.

The principle on which these recipes were based, however, that of pulses or starchy vegetables absorbing excess fat from the meat and thereby themselves acquiring the lubrication they need to make them palatable, still applies in modern recipes, at least as far as pork is concerned.

Fat belly of pork is also used a good deal in the making of the pâtés and terrines, and for the
rillettes
described in the section on pork products.

Remember also that the rind of fresh pork is valuable for the gelatinous quality it gives to stock; and in French cookery enormous use is made of the rind of either salt or fresh pork to lubricate and enrich beef stews and bean dishes—notably the cassoulet of Toulouse. But use it sparingly, for it is rather rich for those not accustomed to such food.

The prime cuts of pork, from the leg and loin, also offer first-class value, and as will be seen from the recipes in this section, some really beautiful dishes can be made from them, many of these being at their best cold, as is so often the case with a fat meat. And, personally, plebeian though it may be considered, I find a well-seasoned pork chop properly grilled a good deal more interesting than the everlasting and often overrated beefsteak.

Carré
of pork is the part of the loin comprising seven or eight neck cutlets. Half the joint can be cooked if the whole one is too big, but it is so good cold that I usually cook more than is needed for one meal.

Ask the butcher to pare off the rind without removing any of the fat, unless the joint happens to be a very fat one, and to chine the bones. Insert a few little slivers of garlic close to the bones. Rub the meat well with salt. Pour a large glass of white or red wine over it, add 2 or 3 sprigs of fresh thyme and leave to steep for a couple of hours.

Put the meat and its marinade into a baking tin, cover with greased paper or foil and cook, fat side up, with the rind underneath to enrich the sauce, in a moderate oven, Gas No. 4, 355 deg. F., for approximately 1
hours. If the liquid dries up, add a little water.