French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [203]
To serve, put the joint on a hot serving dish, pour off excess juice and fat from the sauce, give the residue a quick stir over the fire, and pour it round the meat. A purée of white haricot beans is served at the same time.
Other joints of lamb can be cooked in the same way; in fact, when I had this dish in Nancy it was made with a shoulder of baby lamb, so small that each joint provided portions for only two people—that is to say two people expected still to have very respectable appetites after consuming their fair share of a quiche.
FILET D’AGNEAU AU FOUR
ROAST FILLET OF LAMB
This way of presenting roast lamb makes an attractive dinner-party dish. The fillet is a piece of loin, boned, rolled in a sausage shape and tied. A good butcher will do it with much less waste than you can manage at home; it is initially an expensive joint, but there is no waste. A 2 lb. piece (before boning) should be enough for four people, and lamb is not at its best cold, so there is little point in buying more than you need in this case. Ask for the bones to be put in with the meat.
Season your meat, sprinkle it with a little thyme, and for those who like the flavour of garlic with lamb and mutton put a clove or two underneath the meat in the roasting-pan, where it will flavour both meat and gravy without being overwhelming. Put the bones round the meat and add 2 soup ladles of water, or meat stock if you have it, and cook uncovered in a medium oven, Gas No. 5, 380 deg. F., for about 45 minutes to an hour, or even a little more, depending on the thickness of the meat. Remove the bones, pour off the juice into a saucepan and leave the meat to brown in the uncovered pan. Pour the fat off the gravy, reduce what is left to a good consistency by fast boiling and serve it separately.
SELLE D’AGNEAU AU FOUR
ROAST SADDLE OF LAMB
The average weight of an English or New Zealand saddle of lamb is about 6 lb. and should serve at least eight people. Preheat the oven to Gas No. 5, 380 deg. F. Wrap up the joint in plentifully buttered foil, and stand it on a grid over a baking tin. Cook it in the centre of the oven for 1 hours. Unwrap it, turn the oven down to No. 5, or 330 deg. F., and cook it another hour. Have ready a large cupful of good strong stock made from trimmings and bones of lamb. During the final cooking baste the joint with this. This, and the juices from the meat itself, will then form the gravy. Carve the joint in long thin bias-cut fillets, then turn it over and carve from the undercut. Reconstitute the joint as nearly as possible in its original shape, and serve it surrounded by little potatoes, baby carrots and tender little string beans, all cooked separately and well buttered.
French butchers cut a saddle of lamb shorter than is the custom in England, which makes it more manageable. But this makes little difference to the cooking time, as it is the thickness of the joint rather than the length which has to be taken into consideration.
CARBONNADE NÎMOISE
LAMB OR MUTTON BAKED WITH POTATOES
Carbonnade is a name usually associated with a Flemish dish of beef cooked in the local Belgian beer. A carbonnade of mutton is also a traditional dish from Nîmes in the Languedoc, home also of the famous brandade de morue, the Friday dish of salt cod found all over southern France. The Nîmois carbonnade is one of those