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.