MUTTON AND LAMB

In BOASTING mutton or lamb, the loin, the chine, and the saddle must have the skin raised and skewered on; and, when nearly done, take olf this skin, and baste and flour to froth it up. feix or seven pounds of mutton will roast, in an hour and a half: Lamb one hour.

In regard to BOILING, mutton enough for a family of five or six should boil an hour and a half. A leg of lamb should boil an hour, or little more than an hour, perhaps. Put a little thickening into boiling water; strain it nicely; and put sweet butter in it for sauce. If your family like bro;h, throw in some clear rice when you put in the meat. The rice should be in

MEATS. 51

proportion to the quantity of broth yon mean to make. A large table-spoonful is enough for three pints of water. Sea- soned with a very little pepper and salt. Summer-savory, 01 sage, rubbed through a sieve, thrown in.

MUTTON LEG. — If your leg of mutton is roasted, serve with onion or currant-jelly sauce; if it is boiled, serve with caper- sauce and vegetables. In roasting or boiling, a quarter of an hour is usually allowed for each pound of meat.

MUTTON BREAST, ROASTED WITH WINE. — Skin and bone a breast of mutton, then roll it up in a collar like a breast of veal. Roast it, and baste it with half a pint of red wine ; when you have used up all the wine, finish basting with butter. Have a little good gravy in readiness, and when the mutton is done, set it upright in a dish, pour in the gravy, prepare sweet sauce the same as for venison, and send it up to table without any garnish.

MUTTON LEG STUFFKD. — Make a stuffing with a little beef- suet chopped, some parsley, thyme, marjoram, a little grated lemon, nutmeg grated, pepper, salt, and a few bread-crumbs; mix all together with the yolk of an egg, put this under the skin in the thickest part of a leg of mutton under the flap, then roast it, and serve it to table with some good gravy in the dish.

LEG OF MUTTON BOILED. — Wash a leg of mutton, dredge it well with flour, and wrap it in a cloth, then put it in a pot of hot water, and boil according to its weight. Serve with drawn butter or parsley sauce, with boiled vegetables and pickles.

When intended for roasting, mutton should hang as long as it will keep, the hind-quarter particularly.

Mutton for boiling ought not to hang long, as it will prevent its looking of a good color.

To HAREICO MUTTON. — Take a loin of mutton, parboil it. Make a rich gravy with part of the water the meat has been boiled in. Take carrots, turnips, onions. Lay the meat into a pan. pour the gra*~y over it, and then Jay the vegetables. Put it into a stew-pan, and set it in the oven for two hours.

MUTTON CHOPS. — Out the chops very nicely, pare off the fat, and fry them a fine brown, having first seasoned them with salt, and if the chops are thick, beat them tender. Pile them up like hop-poles in the dish, with the bones meeting at the

62 MEATS.

top, and place between each a slice of bread fried in butter. The fire over which they are roasted should be moderate, and the chops frequently turned, that they may not burn.

LAMB— Is a delicate, and commonly considered tender meat; but those who talk of tender lamb, while they are thinking of the age of the animal, forget that even a chicken must be kept a proper time after it has been killed, or it will be tough pick ing. To the usual accompaniments of roasted meat, green mint sauce, and a salad, is commonly added ; and some cooks, about five minutes before it is done, sprinkle it with a little fresh - gathered and finely minced parsley. Lamb, and all young meats, ought to be thoroughly done ; therefore do not take either lamb or veal off the spit till you see it drop white gravy. When green mint cannot be got, mint vinegar is an acceptable substi- tute for it ; and crisp parsley on a side plate, is an admirable accompaniment.

Hind-Quarter, of eight pounds, will take from an hour and three-quarters to two hours; baste and froth it. The leg and the loin of lamb, when little, should be roasted together ; the for- mer being lean, the latter fat, and the gravy is better preserved.

Fore- Quarter, of ten pounds, about two hours. It is a pretty general custom, when you take off the shoulder from the ribs, ^o squeeze a Seville orange over them, and sprinkle them with a little pepper and salt. This may as well be done by the cook before it comes to table; some people are not remarkably ex- pert at dividing these joints nicely.

Leg, of five pounds, from an hour to an hour and a half.

Shoulder, with a quick fire, an hour.

Ribs, about an hour to an hour and a quarter : joint it nicely, crack the ribs across, and divide them from the brisket after it is roasted.

Loin, an hour and a quarter.

Neck, an hour.

Breast, three-quarters of an hour.

LAMB BRKAST. — Cut it into pieces, and stew it in a weak stock, with a glass of port wine ; add pepper and salt. When it is perfectly tender, thicken the sauce with butter and flour. Have ready cucumbers stewred in gravy, put them over the lamb before serving. A breast of mutton may be served in the same way.

LAMB SHOULDER, GRILLED. — Boil it; score it in chequers about an inch square, rub it over with the yolk of an egg, pep

per and salt it, strew it with bre^d-crumbs and dried parsley, or sweet herbs, and carbonado, i. e. grill, i. e. broil it over a clear fire, or pnt it in a Dutch oven till it is a nice light brown ; send up some gravy with it, or make a sauce for it of flour and water, well mixed together, with an ounce of fresh butter, a table-spoonful of mushroom or walnut ketchup, and the juice of half a lemon. Breasts of lamb are often done in the same wav, and with mushroom or mutton sauce.

LAMB CHOPS. — Cut a neck or loin of lamb into chops; rub them over with the beaten yolk of an egg; dip them into grated bread, mixed with plenty of chopped parsley, and season with lemon-peel, pepper, and salt; fry them alight brown in gocd dripping ; make a sauce with the trimmings, and thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour; add a little lemon pickle and mushroom ketchup. Garnish with fried parsley. They may be serve^ with or without the gravy.

PORK. Fresh pork should be cooked more than any other meal.

To ROAST PORK. — Lay it at some distance from the fire, and flour it well. When the flour dries, wipe the pork clean with a coarse cloth ; then cut the skin in rows with a sharp knife, put your meat close to the fire, and roast it as quick as possible. Baste with butter and a little dry sage. Some persons add onions finely shred.

ROASTED PIG. — A pig to roast is best from three to four weeks old. Prepare a stuffing with slices of bread and butter, sprink- led well with chopped sage, and seasoned with pepper and salt, laying five or six slices one upon another, and put them into the inside of the pig; skewer it well, to prevent it from falling out, and then spit it, previously rubbing it over with swett oil ; put it down before a moderate fire, to roast for two hours, more or less, according to its size ; when thoroughly done, take off* the head, and split the pig straight down the back ; then dish up the two halves, and splitting the head, lay half at each end of the dish, pour some good strong gravy under it, and serve hof. Some persons prefer to have the pig baked, instead of roasted ; it is equally good either way.

HAMS. — To boil a ham, soak it according to its age, for twelve or twenty-four hours. Put it into a large saucepan full of

54 MEATS.

cold AA~at°", and if a small one, let it simmer for two or three hours, and then boil an hour and a half. Let it stand in the liquor until perfectly cold. Then take off the skin.

Tho Virginia method of curing hams, (which is considered very superior,) is to dissolve two ounces of salt-petre, two tea- spoonsful of saleratus, in a salt pickle, as strong as possible; for every sixteen pounds of ham, add molasses in the proportion of a gallon to a hogshead of water, then put in the hams and let them remain three or four weeks. Then take them out of the brine and smoke them with the hocks downward, to preserve the juices. They will smoke tolerably well in the course of a month ; but they will be much better to remain m the smoke-

house two or three months. Hams cured in this manner are well-flavored, and will keep a long time.

SOUSE. — Take pig's ears and feet, clean them thoroughly, then soak them in salt and water, for several days. Boil them tender and split them, they are then good fried. If you wish to souse them when cold, turn boiling vinegar on them, spiced with pepper-corns and mace. Cloves improve the taste, but it turns them a dark color. Add a little salt. They will keep good pickled five or six weeks. Fry them in lard.

SAUSAGES. — Chop fresh pork very fine, the lean and fat to- gether. Then fill the skins which should be previously cleaned thoroughly. A little flour mixed in with the meat, tends to prevent the fat from running out when cooked. Sausage-meat is good, done up in small cakes and fried. In summer, when fresh pork cannot be procured, very good sausage-cakes may be made of raw beef, chopped fine with salt pork, and seasoned with pepper and sage. When sausages are fried, they should not be pricked, and they will cook nicer to have a little fat put in the frying pan with them. They should be cooked slowly. If you do not like them very fat, take them out of the ppn when nearly done, and finish cooking them on a gridiron. Bo- logna sausages are made of equal weight each, of ham, veal, and pork, chopped very fine, seasoned high, and boiled in ca- sings till tender, then dried.

To ROAST VENISON. — Take a haunch and spit it ; batter four sheets of paper and put two on the haunch ; then make a paste with flour, butter, and water; roll it out half as big as the haunch, and put it over the fat part ; then put the other two sheets of paper on, and tie them with pack-thread ; lay it to a brisk fixe, and baste it well all the time of roasting If a large

VENISON. 55

itaunch of 24 Ibs., it will take three hours and a half, except it is a very large fire ; then three hours will do : smaller in pro- portion.

Take either of these sauces for venison : Currant jelly warmed ; or half a pint of red wine, with a quarter of a pound of sugar simmered over a clear fire for five or six minutes ; or half a pint of vinegar and a quarter of a pound of sugar, sim- mered to syrup.

The venison that is left after roasting may be hashed, and stewed with currant jelly, when it makes an excellent dish.

VENISON PASTRY — Should be baked two hours or more

RABBITS. — To Fricasee a rabbit cut it in pieces, reserve the iiver; put a piece of bacon cut in slices into a stew pan, brown it well and lay it aside; put the rabbit in the pan with a piece of butter ; turn and toss the rabbit well until it is quite white. When it is getting brown dredge a spoonful of flour over it, turning all the while, and when the flour is dry put the rabbit in a plate. Then add another piece of butter to the remaining sauce, and stir it well together, and when brown add a cupful of water; continue stirring, and put in the rabbit with plenty of very smal) onions, the bacon, some mushrooms, a bunch of parsley, and some salt and pepper ; let it stew very gently over a slow fire for four hours. Add the liver and a glass of port wine one hour before serving, and should there not be sufficient sauce, a little gravy from time to time, put in hot.

When a rabbit is roasted it should first be well stuffed. Serve it with sauce made of liver, parsley, and melted butter.

Rabbits may be stewed, or fried, or baked in a pie.

RABBIT PIE. — Cut a couple of young rabbits into quarters, and bruise a quarter of a pound of bacon in a mortar, with the livers, some pepper, salt, a little mace, parsley, cut small, and a few leaves of sweet basil ; when these are all beaten fine, ling your pie-dish with a nice crust, then put a layer of the season- ing at the bottom of the dish, and put in the rabbits; pound some more bacon in a mortar, mix with it some fresh butter, and cover the rabbits with it, and over that lay thin slices of bacon ; put on the cover, and place it in the oven ; it will be done in about two hours; when baked, take off the cover, take out the bacon, and skim off the fat, and if there is not a sufficient quantity of gravy, add some rich mutton or veal gravy.

RABBIT, BROILED. — Take a couple of young rabbits, cut them up, and put them to steep for a tew hours in a little oil, mixed with parsley, leeks, a few mushrooms, and a clove of garlic, all ahred fine ; salt and pepper ; roll each piece of rabbit in a rasher

56 POULTRY, GAME, ETC.

of bacon, and put them, with a part of the seasoning, into pieces of white paper ; batter the papers inside; broil upon a gridiron over a very slow fire, and serve hot in the papers.

POULTRY, GAME, &c.

Half-grown poultry is not so good as the full-grown, when it is still young. Old poultry is always tough, especially geese. To discover whether poultrv is young, observe if the skin is thin and tender, the feet moist and limber, the eyes full and bright. The bill and feet of a young goose are smooth and yellow, of an old one they are red and hairy. When poultry is eaten on the same day it is killed, it is stringy and often tough.

In drawing poultry the gall should not be broken.

If the poultry is scalded it can be picked with greater facil- ity— this is more necessary for wild fowl than any other. The hairs about the skin may be singed off by lighting a piece of twisted paper and holding the poultry over it. The head, neck, and feet of tame fowl are cut away — the legs are fastened to the body by a string tied around it. No skewers are necessary.

ROAST CHICKENS. — An hour is enough for common sized chickens to roast. A smart fire is better than a slow one ; but they must be tended closely. Slices of bread, buttered, salted, and peppered, put into the stomach (not the crop) are excellent.

CHICKENS BOILED. — When they are drawn and trussed, lay the chickens in skim milk for about two hours. Then put them into cold water, cover them close, and set them over a slow fire, and skim them well. As soon as they have boiled slowly, take them from the fire, and let them remain in the water close covered for half an hour ; then drain and serve with white sauce.

CITBKIED. — Take the skin off of it; cut up a chicken, and roll each piece in curry powder and flour (mix together a spoonful of flour to half an ounce of curry) fry two or three sliced onions in butter ; when of a light brown, put in the meat and fry them . together till the meat becomes brown; then stew them togeth- er with a little water for two or three hours. More water may be added if too thick.

FBIOASSEED. — The chickens are cut to pieces, and covered with warm water to draw out the blood. Then put into a stew pan, with three-quarters of a pint of water, or veal broth, salt,

POULTRY, GAME, ETC. 51

pepper, flour, butter, mace, sweet herbs pounded and sifted; boil it half an hour. If it is too fat, skim it a little Just be- fore it is done, mix the yolk of two eggs with a gill of cream. stir it up till it is thick and smooth, squeeze in half a lemon. If von like onions, stew some slices with the other ingredients.

CHIOKKN PIE — Cut up two young fowls, season them with ca;. enue pepper and salt. Put the cut chicken, with slices of ham and hard egg, into a deep dish covered with paste — pour the dish half full of cold water, or if you have any cold gravy, that will be better — fill the dish with the gravy — add an onion or a few mushrooms — cover the dish with a light paste, and bake the pie until the crust is quite brown.

CHICKEN SALAD.— Boil a chicken that weighs not more than a pound and a half. When very tender, take it up, cut it in small strips, and make the following sauce, and turn over it; boil four eggs three minutes — then take them out of the shells, mash and mix them with a couple of table-spoonfuls of olive- oil, or melted butter, two-thirds of a tumbler of vinegar, a tea- spoonful of mixed mustard, a tea-spoonful of salt, a little pep- per, and essence of celery, if you have it — if not, it can be dis- pensed with. In making Chicken Salad, the dressing should not be put on till a few minutes before the salad is sent in ; as by lying in it, the chicken and celery will become hard.

DUCKS. — Ducks may be roasted as soon as killed. Keep a clear bright fire. Let them be done of a light brown ; but if wild they should not be much roasted, or the flavor will be spoiled. They take about an hour to roast, and should be well basted. The livers and gizzard are parboiled, chopped fine, and thrown into the gravy.

Canvas-back ducks are roasted in half an hour : they should always be served with currant-jelly. For tame ducks apple- sauce is more appropriate.

To STEW A DUCK WITH CLARET. — Make a gravy of the giblets; rub the duck inside and outside with pepper and a little salt; peel and mince two or three onions, and having half roasted the duck, put it into a stew-pan with the gravy and onions. Stew it gently for two hours, adding towards the end a gla^s of claret or port wine. Squeeze the juice of a lemon over the duck, and serve it with toasted bread.

What remains of a roasted wild duck, may be warmed the next day in heaters with a little currant-jelly, when it is ex- cellent.

Ducks may be hashed and stewed with a glass of port wine thrown into the gravy.

58 POULTRY, GAME, ETC.

To ROAST A GOOSE. — Chop a few sage-leaves and two onions very fine, mix them with a good lump of butter, a tea-spoonful of pepper, and two of salt ; put it in the goose. Then spit it, lay it down, and dust it with flour; when it is thoroughly hot, baste it with nice lard. If it be a large one, it will require an hour and a half before a good clear fire. When it is done enough, dredge and baste it, pull out the spit, and pour in a little boiling water. It may be stuffed with bread or potatoes, and should be served with apple-sauce.

GOOSE PIE. — Bone a goose, season it well with pepper and mace, lay the meat in your dish, and place on the top of it eight ounces of good fresh butter ; cover with a good crust, and bake it in a slow oven. There is no necessity for boning the goose, if inconvenient.

TUEKETS. — A good-sized turkey should be roasted two hours and a half, or three hours — very slowly at first. If you wish to make plain stuffing, pound a cracker, or crumble some bread very fine, chop some raw salt pork very fine, sift some sage, (and summer-savory, or sweet marjoram, if you have them in the house, and fancy them,) and mould them together, seasoned with a little pepper. An egg worked in makes the stuffing cut better.

A turkey for boiling should be prepared in the same manner as one for roasting. If yon wish to have it look white, tie it up in a cloth, unless you boil rice in the pot. If rice is used, put in two-thirds of a tea-cup. The most approved fashion is to send boiled turkey to table with oysters in their sauce in a email tureen.

TURKEY, HASHED. — Gut up the remains of a roasted turkey, put it into a stewpan, with a glass of white wine, chopped parsley, shallots, mushrooms, truffles, salt and pepper, two spoonfuls of cullis, and a little stock; boil half an hour, and reduce to a thick sauce ; when ready, add a pound of anchovy, and a squeeze of lemon ; skim off all the fat from the sauce, and terve all together.

TURKEY, ROASTKP.— It may be either stuffed with sausage meat, or stuffing the same as for fillet of veal. As this makes a large addition to the size of the bird, take care that the heat of the fire is constantly to ;hat part, as it frequently happens that the breast is not sufficiently done. A strip of paper should be put on the bone to prevent its scorching, while the other parts are roasting. Baste well, and froth it up. Serve with gravy in the dish, and bread sauce in a sauce tureen. A few bread-

Pheasants should be selected with the spur hut little developed ; the tender- ness of the bird is known by trying the flesh of the pinion. Wood-cocks, as well a- water-fowl (such as wild ducks, teal, widgeon, etc.), can be tried by pinchinir the pinion and breast. The age of partridges can be ascertained by examining the long feathers of the wing, round at the tip in an old bird, and poin'ed in a young.

To ROAST GROUSE. — Handle the birds very lightly in pluck- ing off the feathers; draw them, and wipe the insides with clean, damp cloths; or first wash, and then dry them well; though this latter mode would not be approved generally by epicures. Truss the grouse in the same manner as black game, and roast them about half an hour at a clear and brisk tire, keeping them basted almost without intermission. Serve them on a buttered toast which has been laid under them in the pan for ten minutes, or with gravy and bread sauce only.

Half hour to thirtv-five minutes.

There are few occasions, we think, in which the contents of the dripping-pan can be introduced at table with advan- tage; but in dressing moor game, we would strongly recom- mend the toast to be laid in it under the birds, as it will afford a superior relish.