Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches by Eliza Leslie Published: 1840
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MUTTON AND LAMB.
GENERAL REMARKS.
The fore-quarter of a sheep contains the neck, breast, and
shoulder; and the hind-quarter the loin and leg. The two loins
together are called the chine or saddle. The flesh of good mutton
is of a bright red, and a close grain, and the fat firm and quite
white. The meat will feel tender and springy when you squeeze it
with your fingers. The vein in the neck of the fore-quarter should
be of a fine blue.
Lamb is always roasted; generally a whole quarter at once. In
carving lamb, the first thing done is to separate the shoulder
from the breast, or the leg from the loin.
If the weather is cold enough to allow it, mutton is more tender
after being kept a few days.
TO ROAST MUTTON.
Mutton should be roasted with a quick brisk fire. Every part
should be trimmed off that cannot be eaten. Wash the meat well.
The skin should be taken off and skewered on again before the meat
is put on the spit; this will make it more juicy. Otherwise tie
paper over the fat, having soaked the twine in water to prevent
the string from burning. Put a little salt and water into the
dripping-pan, to baste the meat at first, then use its own gravy
for that purpose. A quarter of an hour before you think it will be
done, take off the skin or paper, dredge the meat very lightly
with flour, and baste it with butter. Skim the gravy and send it
to table in a boat. A leg of mutton will require from two hours
roasting to two hours and a half in proportion to its size. A
chine or saddle, from two hours and a half, to three hours. A
shoulder, from an hour and a half, to two hours. A loin, from an
hour and three quarters, to two hours. A haunch (that is a leg
with, part of the loin) cannot be well roasted in less than four
hours.
Always have some currant jelly on the table to eat with roast
mutton. It should also be accompanied by mashed turnips.
Slices cut from a cold leg of mutton that has been under-done, are
very nice broiled or warmed on a gridiron, and sent to the
breakfast table covered with currant jelly.
Pickles are always eaten with mutton.
In preparing a leg of mutton for roasting, you may make deep
incisions in it, and stuff them with chopped oysters, or with a
force-meat made in the usual manner; or with chestnuts parboiled
and peeled. The gravy will be improved by stirring into it a glass
of port wine.
TO BOIL MUTTON.
To prepare a leg of mutton for boiling, wash it clean, cut a small
piece off the shank bone, and trim the knuckle. Put it into a pot
with water enough to cover it, and boil it gently for three hours,
skimming it well. Then take it from the fire, and keeping the pot
well covered, let it finish by remaining in the steam for ten or
fifteen minutes. Serve it up with a sauce-boat of melted butter
into which a tea-cup full of capers or nasturtians have been
stirred.
Have mashed turnips to eat with it.
A few small onions boiled in the water with the mutton are thought
by some to improve the flavour of the meat. It is much better when
sufficient time is allowed to boil or simmer it slowly.
A neck or a loin of mutton will require also about three hours
slow boiling. These pieces should on no account be sent to table
the least under-done. Serve up with them carrots and whole
turnips. You may add a dish of suet dumplings to eat with the
meat, made of finely chopped suet mixed with double its quantity
of flour, and a little cold water.
MUTTON CHOPS.
Take chops or steaks from a loin of mutton, cut off the bone close
to the meat, and trim off the skin, and part of the fat. Beat them
to make them tender, and season them with pepper and salt. Make
your gridiron hot over a bed of clear bright coals; rub the bars
with suet, and lay on the chops. Turn them frequently; and if the
fat that falls from them causes a blaze and smoke, remove the
gridiron for a moment till it is over. When they are thoroughly
done, put them into a warm dish and butter them. Keep them covered
till a moment before they are to be eaten.
When the chops have been turned for the last time, you may strew
over them some finely minced onion moistened with boiling water,
and seasoned with pepper.
Some like them flavoured with mushroom catchup.
Another way of dressing mutton chops is, after trimming them
nicely and seasoning them with pepper and salt, to lay them for
awhile in melted butter. When they have imbibed a sufficient
quantity, take them out, and cover them all over with grated
bread-crumbs. Broil them over a clear fire, and see that the bread
does not burn.
CUTLETS À LA MAINTENON.
Cut a neck of mutton into steaks with a bone in each; trim them
nicely, and scrape clean the end of the bone. Flatten them with a
rolling pin, or a meat beetle, and lay them in oiled butter. Make
a seasoning of hard-boiled yolk of egg and sweet-herbs minced
small, grated bread, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; and, if you choose,
a little minced onion. Take the chops out of the butter, and cover
them with the seasoning. Butter some half sheets of white paper,
and put the cutlets into them, so as to be entirely covered,
securing the paper with pins or strings; and twisting them nicely
round the bone. Heat your gridiron over some bright lively coals.
Lay the cutlets on it, and broil them about twenty minutes. The
custom of sending them to table in the papers had best be omitted,
as (unless managed by a French cook) these envelopes, after being
on the gridiron, make a very bad appearance.
Serve them up hot, with mushroom sauce in a boat, or with a brown
gravy, flavoured with red wine. You may make the gravy of the
bones and trimmings, stewed in a little water, skimmed well, and
strained when sufficiently stewed. Thicken it with flour browned
in a Dutch oven, and add a glass of red wine.
You may bake these cutlets in a Dutch oven without the papers.
Moisten them frequently with a little oiled butter.
STEWED MUTTON CHOPS.
Cut a loin or neck of mutton into chops, and trim away the fat and
bones. Beat and flatten them. Season them with pepper and salt,
and put them into a stew-pan, with barely sufficient water to
cover them, and some sliced carrots, turnips, onions, potatoes,
and a bunch of sweet herbs, or a few tomatas. Let the whole stew
slowly about three hours, or till every thing is tender. Keep the
pan closely covered, except when you are skimming it.
Send it to table with sippets or three-cornered pieces of toasted
bread, lain all round the dish.
HASHED MUTTON.
Cut into small pieces the lean of some cold mutton that has been
under-done, and season it with pepper and salt. Take the bones and
other trimmings, put them into a sauce-pan with as much water as
will cover them, and some sliced onions, and let them stew till
you have drawn from them a good gravy. Having skimmed it well,
strain the gravy into a stew-pan, and put the mutton into it. Have
ready-boiled some carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions. Slice
them, and add them to the meat and gravy. Set the pan on hot
coals, and let it simmer till the meat is warmed through, but do
not allow it to boil, as it has been once cooked already. Cover
the bottom of a dish with slices of buttered toast. Lay the meat
and vegetables upon it, and pour over them the gravy.
Tomatas will be found an improvement.
If green peas, or Lima beans are in season, you may boil them, and
put them to the hashed mutton; leaving out the other vegetables,
or serving them up separately.
A CASSEROLE OF MUTTON.
Butter a deep dish or mould, and line it with potatoes mashed with
milk or putter, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Fill it with
slices of the lean of cold mutton, or lamb, seasoned also. Cover
the whole with more mashed potatoes. Put it into an oven, and bake
it till the meat is thoroughly warmed, and the potatoes brown.
Then carefully turn it out on a large dish; or you may, if more
convenient, send it to table in the dish it was baked in.
MUTTON HARICO.
Take a neck of mutton, cut it into chops, and fry them brown. Then
put them into a stew-pan with a bunch of sweet herbs, two or three
cloves, a little mace, and pepper and salt to your taste. Cover
them with boiling water, and let them stew slowly for about an
hour. Then cut some carrots and turnips into dice; slice some
onions, and cut up a head of celery; put them all into the stew-pan,
and keep it closely covered except when you are skimming off
the fat. Let the whole stew gently for an hour longer, and then
send it to table in a deep dish, with the gravy about it.
You may make a similar harico of veal steaks, or of beef cut very
thin.
STEWED LEG OF MUTTON.
Take a leg of mutton and trim it nicely. Put it into a pot with
three pints of water; or with two pints of water and one quart of
gravy drawn from bones, trimmings, and coarse pieces of meat. Add
some slices of carrots, and a little salt. Stew it slowly three
hours. Then put in small onions, small turnips, tomatas or tomata
catchup, and shred or powdered sweet marjoram to your taste, and
let it stew three hours longer. A large leg will require from
first to last from six hours and a half to seven hours stewing.
But though it must be tender and well done all through, do not
allow it to stew to rags. Serve it up with the vegetables and
gravy round it. Have mashed potatoes in another dish.
TO ROAST LAMB.
The best way of cooking lamb is to roast it; when drest otherwise
it is insipid, and not so good as mutton. A hind-quarter of eight
pounds will be done in about two hours; a fore-quarter of ten
pounds, in two hours and a half; a leg of five pounds will take
from an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half; a loin about an
hour and a half. Lamb, like veal and pork, is not eatable unless
thoroughly done; no one preferring it rare, as is frequently the
case with beef and mutton.
Wash the meat, wipe it dry, spit it, and cover the fat with paper.
Place it before a clear brisk fire. Baste it at first with a
little salt and water, and then with its own drippings. Remove the
paper when the meat is nearly done, and dredge the lamb with a
little flour. Afterwards baste it with butter. Do not take it off
the spit till you see it drop white gravy.
Prepare some mint sauce by stripping from the stalks the leaves of
young green mint, mincing them very fine, and mixing them with
vinegar and sugar. There must be just sufficient vinegar to
moisten the mint, but not enough to make the sauce liquid. Send it
to table in a boat, and the gravy in another boat. Garnish with
sliced lemon.
In carving a quarter of lamb, separate the shoulder from the
breast, or the leg from the ribs, sprinkle a little salt and
pepper, and squeeze on some lemon juice.
It should be accompanied by asparagus, green peas, and lettuce.
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