If mutton is good it is of a fine grain; the lean is of a bright red color, and the fat firm and white. Unless there is plenty of fat the lean will not be good; and so it is with all meat. If the lean is of a very dark red, and coarse and hard, and the fat yellowish and spongy, the mutton is old, tough, and strong. Therefore, do not buy it. If there is any dark or blackish tint about the meat, it is tainted, and of course unwholesome. If kept till it acquires what the English call venison taste, Americans will very properly refuse to eat it.

We give no directions for disguising spoilt meat. It should be thrown away. Nothing is fit to eat in which decomposition is commencing.

BOILED LOIN OF MUTTON.—

A good loin of mutton is always very fat, so that in cooking it is well to remove or pare off a portion of the outside fat. Unlike most other meats, mutton is the better for being boiled in soup. Put it into a large pot; allow to every pound a quart of water. Boil it slowly and skim it well, adding the vegetables when the scum has done rising. The vegetables should be sliced turnips, potatos, and grated carrots. Have ready plenty of suet dumplings, in the proportion of half a pound of finely minced suet to a pound and a quarter of flour. Rub the suet into the pan of flour, and use as little water as possible in mixing the dough. Make it into thick dumplings, rather larger round than a dollar. Boil them in a pot by themselves, till thoroughly done. Serve up the meat with the dumplings round it. Or put the dumplings in a dish by themselves, and surround the meat with whole turnips. This is an excellent plain dish for a private family. Serve up pickles with it.

SAUCE FOR BOILED MUTTON.—

This particularly applies to mutton that has been boiled in soup, and which is so very generally liked, that it is served up on tables where soup-meat of beef and veal is considered inadmissible. To make a suitable sauce to eat with it—take two or three large boiled onions; slice them and put them into a sauce-pan, with a piece of fresh butter slightly rolled in flour, a table-spoonful of made mustard. French mustard will be best; or, for want of that, two table-spoonfuls of strong tarragon vinegar, and a half-salt-spoon of cayenne, and some pickled cucumbers chopped, but not minced. Green nasturtion seeds will be still better than cucumbers. Put these ingredients into a small sauce-pan, adding to them a little of the mutton soup. Set this sauce over the fire, and when it simmers well, take it off, put into a sauce-boat, and keep it hot till the mutton goes to table.

To keep nasturtions—take the full-grown green seeds, and put them into a large bottle of the best cider vinegar, corking them closely. They require nothing more, and are far superior to capers.

BOILED LEG OF MUTTON.—

After nicely trimming a middle-sized leg of mutton, wash, but do not soak it. Put it into a pot that will hold it well, and pour on rather more water than is sufficient to cover it. Set it over a good fire, and skim it as soon as it begins to boil, and continue till no more scum appears; having thrown in a small table-spoonful of salt after the first skimming. After the liquid is clear, put in some turnips, pared, and, if large, divided into four pieces. Afterwards it should boil slowly, or simmer gently for about two hours or more. Send to table with it caper sauce; or nasturtion, which is still better. Eat it with any sort of green pickles. Pickles and turnips seem indispensable to boiled mutton. Do not mash the turnips, but let them be well drained.

Setting boiled turnips in the sun will give them an unpleasant taste.

Tarragon sauce is excellent with boiled mutton.

MUTTON STEAKS STEWED.—

Take some tender mutton steaks, cut from the leg. Beat them a little with a rolling pin, and season them with pepper and salt. Put them into a stew-pan with sliced potatos, sliced turnips, sliced onions, sliced or grated carrots, and sweet marjoram leaves stripped from the stalks. Pour in just sufficient water to cover the stew, and let it cook slowly till it is tender and well done. Serve it up hot in a deep dish, with a cover. A table-spoonful of tarragon mustard will improve the stew.

When tomatos are in season, you can stew mutton or any other meat with tomatos only—no water. Having prepared the meat, and laid it in the stew-pan, cover it with tomatos, peeled and quartered. Add some sugar to take off a portion of their acid, and a chopped onion. No water, as the meat will cook in the liquid of the tomatos. They must stew till thoroughly dissolved.

Tender-loin beef steaks—or veal cutlets, may be stewed as above.

MUTTON CHOPS BROILED.—

The best steaks are those cut from the loin, about half an inch thick. Divest them of the bone, and remove the skin and fat. Then butter them slightly all over, before cooking. This will be found an improvement. The French go over them with salad oil, which is still better. Sprinkle on them a little pepper and salt. Having heated the gridiron well over a bed of very hot live coals, place it somewhat aslant, grease its bars with a little of the mutton suet, and lay on the steaks and broil them well; turning them three or four times, and seeing that they are not scorched or burnt on the outside, and red or raw when cut. Turn them with a knife and fork, or with steak-tongs, an instrument with which every kitchen should be furnished. To cook them well requires a clear glowing fire, without blaze or smoke. They should be done in about a quarter of an hour. When you take them up, turn them on a well-heated dish, and pour their gravy over them.

If onions are liked, mince one as fine as possible, and strew it over the steaks while broiling; or, boil and slice some onions, mix some butter among them, season them with pepper, and a little powdered mace or nutmeg, and serve them up with the meat on the same dish, or in a sauce-boat.

MUTTON CHOPS WITH TOMATOS.—

Broil some mutton steaks in the above manner, and have ready some baked tomatos. When the steaks are dished, lay on each a large baked tomato with the face downward, or cover each steak with stewed tomato sauce. For baking, take fine ripe tomatos of the largest size. Cut out a piece from the stem end, and extract the seeds. Then stuff each tomato with grated bread-crumbs, butter, and minced sweet marjoram, or finely minced onion. If you have any cold veal or chicken, add a little of that to the stuffing, mincing it, of course. Bake them in a dish by themselves.

Or, you may send the steaks to table with a slice of fried egg-plant laid upon each; buttered, and sprinkled with bread-crumbs.

MUTTON STEAKS FRIED.—

Make a nice batter of grated bread-crumbs, milk and beaten egg, and put it in a shallow pan. Prepare some fine steaks cut from the loin, divested of fat, and with the bone cut short. Have ready, in a hot frying-pan, some fresh butter or drippings. Dip each steak twice over in the batter, then fry them brown. Send them to table very hot.

You may fry mutton chops like beef steaks, covered with onions, boiled, drained, and sliced.

POTATO MUTTON CHOPS.—

Cut some nice chops or steaks from the best end of a neck of mutton. The loin will be still better. Trim off all the fat, but leave a small part of the bone visible, nicely scraped. Season them with pepper and salt, and fry them in butter or drippings. Have ready plenty of mashed potatos with which cover the chops all over separately, so as to wrap them up in the mashed potatos. Glaze them with beaten egg, and brown them with a salamander or a red-hot shovel. This is a nice breakfast dish.

KEBOBBED MUTTON.—

This is an Asiatic dish, much approved by those who have eaten it in Turkey or India, and it is certainly very good. Remove the skin from a loin of mutton, and also the whole of the fat. Divide it at every joint, cutting all the steaks apart, and making separate steaks of the whole loin. Make a mixture of grated bread-crumbs, minced sweet-herbs, a little salt and pepper, and some powdered nutmeg. Have ready some beaten yolk of egg. Dip each steak into the egg then; twice into the seasoning. Roll up each steak round a wooden skewer, and tie them on a spit with packthread. Roast them before a clear fire, with a dripping-pan under them to catch the gravy, which must be skimmed frequently. They must be roasted slowly and carefully, taking care to have them thoroughly cooked, even to the inmost of every roll. Baste them with just butter enough to keep them moist. When done, carefully take the kebobs from the skewers, and send them to table hot. Eat with them large Spanish chestnuts, roasted and peeled; or else sweet potatos, split, boiled, and cut into short pieces. Pour the gravy into the dish under the kebobs.

Instead of rolling up the kebobs, you may fasten them flat (after seasoning,) with the same spit going through them all, and roast them in that manner. They should all be of the same size and shape. To dish them, lay them one upon another in an even pile. Eat mushroom sauce with them, or any other sort that is very nice.

Venison steaks are very good kebobbed in this manner, at the season when venison can be had fresh, tender, and juicy. For sauce have stewed wild grapes, mashed and made very sweet with brown sugar, or grape jelly, which is still better; or, sauce made of fine cranberries, such as abound in the north-west.

AN IRISH STEW.—

Take three pounds of thick mutton cutlets from the loin, and remove the fat. Slice thick five pounds of fine potatos that have been previously pared. Place a layer of meat in the bottom of a stew-pan, or an iron pot, and lay some of the potatos upon it. Season all with salt and pepper. Upon this another layer of meat—then some potatos again, then meat, and so on till all is in, finishing with potatos at the top. Pour in a pint of cold water. Let it simmer gently for two hours or more, till the meat and potatos are thoroughly done. Serve it up very hot, meat and potatos, on the same dish. If approved, you may add, from the beginning, one or two sliced onions.

A similar stew may be made of beef steaks and potatos.

You may stew pork cutlets in the same manner, but with sweet potatos, split and cut in long pieces, or with yams. The seasoning for the pork should be minced sage.

This is a very plain, but very good dish, if made of nice fresh meat and good potatos, and well cooked.

LAMB.—

The vein in the neck of the fore-quarter should be blueish, and firm—otherwise do not buy it. If greenish or yellowish, it is tainted, and fit only for manure. Never buy any thing that has been kept too long. The worst may, by some process, be a little disguised, but nothing can render wholesome any article of food in which decomposition has commenced, even in the slightest degree. The fat should be quite white. If there is but little meat on the shoulder it has not been a good lamb. In America, where food is abundant, there is no occasion to eat any thing, that has the flavor in the least changed by keeping.

A fore-quarter of lamb comprises the shoulder, the neck, and the breast together. The hind-quarter is the loin and leg. Lamb comes in season in the beginning of April, if the spring is not unusually backward.

Jersey lamb is sometimes garlicky early in the season. Avoid buying it; you can easily tell it by the garlicky smell. It can only be rendered eatable by stewing, or frying it with plenty of onions. To plain roast or boil garlicky meat is in vain. Beef, also, is sometimes garlicky.

Lamb may be cooked in every way that is proper for mutton.

ROAST LAMB.—

The roasting pieces for lamb are the fore-quarter, and hind-quarter; and the saddle, or both hind-quarters together, not having been cut apart. If the saddle is cooked whole, it should be of a small delicate lamb, nice and fat, and is then a fashionable dish at company dinners. Like all other young meat lamb should always be thoroughly done, not the least redness being left perceptible any where about it. A hind-quarter of eight pounds will require at least two hours—a fore-quarter, rather longer. It should be placed before a clear brisk fire, but not very near at first. Put a little water in the dripping-pan, and baste it with that till it begins to cook, adding a little nice fresh butter. Then place it nearer the fire, and when the gravy begins to fall, baste it with that, and repeat the basting very frequently. When the lamb drops white gravy it is nearly done, and you may prepare for taking it up. Skim the gravy that is in the dripping-pan till all the fat is taken off. Then dredge over it a little flour, and send it to table in a gravy boat, having stirred in one or two table-spoonfuls of currant jelly. Lettuce is always an accompaniment to cold lamb.

In carving a fore-quarter of lamb it is usual to take off the shoulder from the ribs, put in a slice of fresh butter, sprinkle it with a little cayenne, and squeeze over the divided parts a fresh lemon cut in half; and put, for that purpose, on a small plate beside the carver.

The vegetables to be eaten with lamb are, new potatos, asparagus, green peas, and spinach. Mint sauce is indispensable. French cooks seldom understand how to make it. To do it properly, take a large bunch of fresh green mint, wash it, and when you have shaken the wet from them, mince the leaves very fine, omitting the stems. Put the leaves, when chopped, into a small tureen or sauce-boat, and pour on a sufficient quantity of the best cider vinegar to moisten the mint thoroughly, but not to render it the least liquid or thin. It should be as thick as horse-radish, prepared to eat with roast beef. Mix in sufficient sugar to make it very sweet. Good brown sugar will do. At table put a tea-spoonful on the side of your plate. Those who make mint sauce thin and weak, and pour it over the meat like gravy, know nothing about it.

LAMB STEAKS.—

Cut some nice cutlets or steaks (without any bone) from a hind-quarter of lamb. Lay them in a stew pan, and season them with a little salt and cayenne, adding some butter rolled in flour. Wash carefully two fine fresh lettuces. Remove the outside leaves, quarter the lettuces, and cut off all the stalks. Set the stew-pan, with the meat, over a clear fire; and let it stew slowly till about half done. Then put in the lettuce, covering the meat with it, and let them all stew about half an hour longer. When done, take out the lettuces first. Put them into a sieve or cullender, press out the water, and chop them large. See if the meat is done all through. If it is, return the stewed lettuce to the pot, season it with a little cayenne and some salad oil, and add to it two or three hard-boiled eggs, chopped large. Cover it, and let it stew five minutes longer. Serve it up on the same dish.

LAMB CUTLETS.—

Cut the cutlets from the loin and trim them nicely, removing the skin, and most of the fat. Scrape the bone, and cut it short. Grate plenty of stale bread, and mix it with some minced sweet marjoram, seasoned with salt and pepper. Have ready a small deep dish of light beaten egg, flavored with grated nutmeg and fresh lemon-peel, grated fine, the thin yellow rind only. Put some nice lard or beef-dripping into a hot frying-pan, and when the lard boils is the time to put in the cutlets. Dip every cutlet separately into the beaten egg. Then into the bread-crumbs, &c. Repeat this a second time both with the egg and bread. The cutlets will be found much better for the double immersion. Then lay them separately in the boiling lard, and fry them well. One cutlet must not be laid on the top of another. When done, dish them and send them to table very hot, with some currant jelly to mix with the gravy. This is a fine breakfast dish or for a small dinner.

Instead of frying, you may broil them. Dip each cutlet twice into the egg and twice into the crumbs, and cover each with clean writing paper, cut of a convenient shape, and secured with pins or packthread, the paper being twisted round the end of the bone. Broil them in the papers, which must be taken off before the cutlets go to table.

LAMB CHOPS, STEWED.—

Cut a loin of lamb into chops or steaks, removing the bone, or else sawing it very short. Trim off the skin and part of the fat. Season the chops with a little pepper and salt, and fry them in fresh butter till they are of a pale brown color. Then pour off the fat and transfer the steaks to a stew-pan. Add enough boiling water to cover them; and having seasoned them with some powdered nutmeg or some blades of mace, add a pint of shelled green peas that have been already parboiled, or a pint of the green tops of asparagus cut off after boiling, and a fresh lettuce stripped of its outside leaves and stalks and quartered. Finish with a small quarter of a pound of fresh butter cut in pieces and rolled in flour, and laid among the vegetables. Let them all stew together with the meat, for half an hour rather slowly. Serve up all upon one large dish. It will make an excellent plain dinner for a small family, with the addition of a dish or two of new potatos, if they are in season.

You may omit the lettuce, and add more peas and asparagus tops.

LARDED LAMB.—

Cut off the fillet or round from a nice hind-quarter of lamb, and remove the bone from the centre. Make a stuffing or forcemeat of bread-crumbs, fresh butter, sweet marjoram, and sweet basil, minced finely; the yellow rind of a fresh lemon, grated; and a tea-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and mace, powdered. Fill with this stuffing the hole from whence the bone was taken, and secure the flap round the side of the meat, putting plenty of stuffing between. Then proceed to lard it. Cut a number of long thin slips of the fat of ham, bacon, or corned pork. All these slips must be of the same size. Take one at a time between the points of the larding-needle, and draw it through the flat surface of the top, or upper side of the meat, so as to leave one end of the ham in, as you slip the other end out of the needle. Do this nicely, arranging the slips of ham in regular form, and very near together. Put the lamb into an iron oven, or bake-pan, with a small portion of lard or fresh butter under it, and bake it thoroughly. When the meat is about half done, put in a quart or more of nice green peas with sufficient butter to cook them well. Serve up the lamb with the peas round it, on the same dish.

This is a dish for company.

LAMB PIE.—

Remove the fat and bone from two pounds or more of nice lamb steaks, or take some cutlets from the upper end of a leg of lamb, and cut them into pieces about as large as the palm of your hand. Season them with pepper and salt very slightly. Put them into a stew pot with a very little water, and let them stew for half an hour or more. In the mean time, make a nice paste, allowing half a pound of fresh butter to a pound of flour. Mix with a broad knife half the butter with the flour, adding gradually enough of cold water to make a dough. Roll out the dough into a large thin sheet, and spread all over it with the knife the remainder of the butter. Fold it, sprinkle it with a little flour, and then divide it into two sheets, and roll out each of them. That intended for the upper crust to be the thickest. Line with the under crust the bottom and sides of a pie-dish. Put in the stewed lamb with its gravy. Intersperse some blades of mace. Add some potatos, sliced, and some sliced boiled turnips. Cover the meat thick with the green tops of boiled asparagus, and lay among it a few bits of fresh butter. For asparagus tops you may substitute boiled cauliflower seasoned with nutmeg. Put on the paste-lid, closing the edges with crimping them nicely. Cut a cross-slit on the top. Put the pie directly into the oven, and bake it of a light brown. Serve it up hot.