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; for instance, four hours.

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, laid all round the dish.

HASHED MUTTON.

Cut into small pieces the lean of some cold mutton that has been underdone, 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 butter, 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.

MUTTON HAMS.

Take large fine legs of mutton freshly killed, and wipe them dry with a clean towel. Allow to each ham half a pound of salt, and an ounce of saltpetre, and half a pound of brown sugar, all mixed together, slightly heated over the fire, and then well rubbed into the meat. Put the hams into a salting-tub, and keep them there two or three days, turning and rubbing them frequently. Then make a mixture, (allowing to each ham half a pound more of brown sugar, the same of salt, and an ounce of saltpetre, pounded fine, with an ounce of black pepper, and an ounce of cloves,) and heat this mixture a few minutes. Take the hams out of the tub, wipe them dry, and then rub into them this second mixture. Clean the salting-tub, and return the hams to it. Cover them, and let them lie for a fortnight, turning them several times, and basting them with the liquid. Then smoke them a fortnight, using for the fire green birch, oak, hickory, or corn-cobs.

Sow them up in new cloths and white-wash the outside of the covers.