Cooking Rowley Leigh
A cutlet above
Lamb cutlets ‘milanese’ Chefs can’t be bothered to make breadcrumbs these days and use the Japanese panko crumbs. They are pretty good and handy to have in the cupboard. Recipe for two.
S
chnitzels are not as easy as all that. Thousands of restaurants – Italian, Austrian or just plain “continental” – are testimony to either soggy cardboard or dry plywood rather than a crisp, slightly crunchy crumb. Likewise, the meat inside this elegant sandwich is often somewhat desiccated. To be any good, it requires not scrimping on the quality of the meat, attention to the coating and, above all, care in the gentle frying in a bubblingly hot mixture of oil and butter. Plus, a careful drying off – kitchen paper and a pinch of salt – before putting the schnitzel on the plate is essential. Most attempts to substitute out-of-favour veal with pork, chicken or even turkey (not quite as silly as it sounds) do not really work. They lack the milky, savoury quality that the combination of veal, crumb and a squeeze of lemon can possess. Indeed a good cotoletta alla milanese, a chop still on the bone and beaten out to the thickness of a pound coin and big enough to overspill the largest plate, might well be a desert-island dish if only the castaway had someone with whom to share it. It may seem odd to apply this treatment to lamb. And I wouldn’t. At least I wouldn’t with most lamb, most of the time. However, the lamb we can get now and for the next month or two should be young and genuinely spring lamb. Most chefs I know don’t have much time for it. The fashion now is for rare breed hogget, beasts that have seen a winter on the fells and have a pronounced flavour: young spring lamb is seen as insipid and lacking in taste. This is right and wrong. It is delicate and sweet and should not be overwhelmed with strong and contrasting flavours. Cutlets from the best end of spring lamb are still highly prized, however, and expensive. Beating them out a little and coating them with crumbs does help to eke them out a little. The meat is tender and responds well to the treatment: I like to put a little Parmesan in the crumb – a trick that might be frowned on in Italy – to give extra umami to the proceedings. Whereas this is an elegant little supper for two, it has another application. Fry off a dozen or two in the morning, swaddle in paper towels, put them in a Tupperware container – other brands are available –and bring them out at a picnic. The response will be very positive. 6
• 1 rack of new season’s spring lamb • 5 tbs plain flour • 2 eggs • 2 tbs sunflower oil • 6 tbs breadcrumbs, quite fine, or use panko crumbs • 2 tbs finely grated Parmesan • 50ml sunflower oil • 50g butter Ask the butcher – or do it yourself – to cut away the flap covering the rack and to remove the fine silverskin membrane that covers the meat, and then cut the rack into four large cutlets (there are normally seven). Clean any fat and connective tissue from around the bones and then, with the meat between two sheets of heavy film – a carrier bag will do the trick – beat out the meat to the thickness of a pound coin. If you don’t have a meat bat, a very small saucepan will do the trick. Prepare three little dishes: one with the flour well seasoned
Heat the oil and add the butter. Once it is foaming, slip in the cutlets, holding them away from you. They should become crisp and golden brown within a minute: turn them over and repeat on the other side. Lift them out on to kitchen paper, add a pinch of salt and serve up with a generous wedge of lemon.
Peas and pea shoots It’s shocking, I know, but I bought shelled peas and pea shoots from a well-known online supermarket. The shame. Very good, though. • 400g of fresh peas • 3 or 4 handfuls of pea shoots • 6 mint leaves • 1 tbs butter Drop the peas into a large pot of salted water. When tender – anything between a minute and 10, depending on the size and age of the peas – drain and toss them, off the heat, with the butter, mint and pea shoots.
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with salt and fine white pepper; the second with the eggs and oil beaten together and the third with the crumbs and Parmesan well mixed. Immerse each cutlet in all three bowls to coat.
Photographs Andy Sewell
ft.com/magazine june 18/19 2016
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