Having had my breast of lam last night I managed to find myself a copy of Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking. I have a copy of it already but this was a different edition and looked as if it had hardly been opened despite being thirty years old. At £3.00 it was almost as good a bargain as the lamb. The recipe was in there under its proper name Breast of Lamb Ste-Ménéhould.

When Simon Hopkinson came to write about it in his book Roast Chicken & Other Stories he takes the recipe from An Omelette and a Glass of Wine. The only difference I can see between the two recipes is the reference to her buying the lamb from Harrods in the later book. I guess shopping in Harrods wouldn’t fit in a book about French cooking.

Here’s Simon Hopkinson writing about it in The Observer a few weeks ago.

Only a week before the death of Elizabeth David, I finally prepared Breast of Lamb Ste-Ménéhould. The recipe was originally published for the Spectator, in 1961. This discussion-including-a-recipe was possibly seen as wilfully casual by irate readers, who simply wished for their usual instructions: ingredients/method/result, please? But she had particularly asked whether she might present her articles in such a way.

I first came across it in An Omelette and a Glass of Wine and had always wanted to cook and eat it. Elizabeth had become a good friend, and I was a great admirer of her writing. I only wish I could have cooked it for her, as I know it was one of her favourites. We would have drunk a bottle of old Rhone with it. Maybe two …

From An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
One of the breadcrumb-grilled dishes I like best is the one called Breast of Lamb Ste-Ménéhould. It is very cheap (breast of English lamb was 8d. a pound at Harrods last Saturday – one often finds a cheap cut cheaper and of better quality in a high-class butchery than in a so-called cheap one, and 2½ lb [1.15kg] was plenty for four), but I am not pretending it is a dish for 10-minute cooks. It is one for those who have the time and the urge to get real value out of cheap ingredients. First you have to braise or bake the meat in the oven with sliced carrots, an onion or two, a bunch of herbs and, if you like, a little something extra in the way of flavouring such as two or three ounces of a cheap little bit of bacon or salt pork, plus seasonings and about a pint of water. It takes about 2½ to 3 hours – depending on the quality of the meat – covered, in a slow oven. Then, while the meat is still warm, you slip out the bones, leave the meat to cool, preferably with a weight on it, and then slice it into strips slightly on the bias and about 1½ to 2 inches wide. Next, spread each strip with a little mustard, paint it with beaten egg (one will be enough for 2½ lb of meat), then coat it with the breadcrumbs, pressing them well down into the meat and round the sides. (I always use breadcrumbs which I’ve made myself from a French loaf, sliced, and dried in the plate drawer underneath the oven. I know people who think this business of making breadcrumbs is a terrible worry, but once the bread is dried it’s a matter of minutes to pound it up with a rolling pin or with a pestle – quicker than doing it in an electric blender.)

All this breadcrumbing finished, you can put the meat on a grid over a baking dish and leave it until you are ready to cook it. Then it goes into a moderate oven for about 20 minutes, because if you put it straight under the grill the outside gets browned before the meat itself is hot. As you transfer the whole lot to the grill pour a very little melted butter over each slice, put them close to the heat, then keep a sharp lookout and turn each piece as the first signs of sizzling and scorching appear.

The plates and dishes should be sizzling too, and some sort of sharp, oil-based sauce – a vinaigrette, a tartare, a mustardy mayonnaise – usually goes with this kind of dish.

Last weekend at the farmers market one of the butchers had a couple of pieces of non-descript meat laid over the counter. I asked what they were and the man said, “Breast of lamb’, and he suggested I pay £10,00 for the mince I was buying instead of £8.00. So I tool them and thy were worth it.

The good cooking of  breast lamb involves delving into an old Elizabeth David recipe which has since been resurrected by Simon Hopkinson and more recently Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Simon Hopkinson simply quotes the Elizabeth David recipe in full and reading it last night I was struck by the lack of clear instruction but the precision in what to do. The actual work in all took less than twenty minutes but it required time to bring it all together.

I started by putting the slab of meat into a roasting tray with some chopped onion, a piece of bacon, some parsley and a good pinch of salt of pepper. I poured about a pint of water around it all and put it into a low oven for a couple of hours.

It then came out to cool a while and once it had done that I pulled out whatever bones I could see sticking out and then put it in the fridge on a plate with another plate on top to weigh it down.

This evening I started off by cutting the meat into slices about the size of a fish finger. The slices were then wetted in some egg and covered in breadcrumbs. They all went under the grill. As they went in I doused them in melted butter. Once they started to cook under the heat I turned them over and doused them in more butter. They took about twenty minutes to cook so the they were hot all the way through and the breadcrumbs crisped up.

Elizabeth David calls for a sharp sauce. I didn’t have that but ate them with my fingers dipping them in mustard as I went along.

Looking back on the way they were slung over the butcher’s counter I am not sure he thought they were destined for much more than pet food.

He put his hands on the table straight in front and let out a quiet belch. His pint glass was empty in front of him. He had drunk it down quickly. First drink at it and then putting the glass down for a minute and then taking it up again to finish it off. The white dregs sliding down the inside and gathering at the bottom. He took up his right hand and used the back of it to wipe at his mouth.

He then took up the glass and reached behind him to put it on the bar next to a couple of notes and a pile of loose change.

‘Mary I’ll have another one now. But let it rest a while so I can take the benefit of this one.’

Tom Cronin was sat across the table and still had in front of him the half pint that had been there when the man had walked in.

‘Tom do you want another for when you finish that?’

Tom Cronin shook his head. ‘I’ll be alright with this for a while,’ he said. ‘Ask me again later if we are sat here still.’

‘Tom are you sat there now still worrying about what was said last night? What was said then was all talk and stories built on the back of the drinks we had. Feck now Tom if you start worrying about that now and sitting in silence with me on a quiet afternoon like this then you are starting to put too many years behind you. Take up a pint and drink with me now.’

‘Mary,’ Tom Cronin said. ‘Mary you were here last night and you heard what was said so would you be blaming me me for not taking a drink with him?’

Mary poured the man’s pint keeping her silence.

The man had his hands back on the table looking straight at Tom Cronin.

‘Feck Tom now you’ve not changed a bit. How many years now since we left school. Probably thirty when we sat there in our shorts feeling guilty at our lack of effort with Miss O’Leary who came down here from Dublin trying to trouble us with some learning. We didn’t listen then and Tom you don’t listen now. You sit there all sphinx like pleased in your quiet ’cause you think you have something on me from last night and the both of us know we put that talk together and it was a bunch of hot air and piss.’

The man smiled, ‘Tom, you’d sit there at fifteen and and not say a word because of some half arsed talk and you are doing it still. You came in here last night and you had your fill and you went home to your bed and you lay there still waiting for sleep to come down upon you and like a fool you let the talk of the night unsettle your mind .’

‘Tom shall we talk about what we talked about last night.’

‘Feck Tom the only talk that we had last night was about mackerel and a man’s inability to catch them when they are not there.’

The pork scratchings made from the remains of the ham brought back from Spain have been a mixed success. I was hoping that the pieces of fat would crisp up to give a good crunch when bitten after they had been in the oven for a few hours. But I think they might have needed another couple of hours. They are still soft and too fatty and not great to eat. I will keep them in the fridge and throw them into the next stew that I make to help give it some body.

But amongst those pieces of fat there were small nuggets of meat that had managed to escape our knives in Spain. They have been worth searching out and preserving. They are mostly hard and crunchy like biting down on a boiled sweet. They still carry with them them the taste of the ham and occasionally there will be a piece that seems to have taken on an even more intense sweet taste. These pieces are soft like a sticky piece of toffee and taste as if they have come from deep inside the pig’s marrow. The taste lingers in the mouth and it is only a shame that there is not much of it left.