Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book Part 11

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 sc.r.a.ped. Season them with pepper and salt, and fry them in b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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, finis.h.i.+ng 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 quant.i.ty 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 b.u.t.ter 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. Sc.r.a.pe 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 b.u.t.ter 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 sh.e.l.led 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter to a pound of flour. Mix with a broad knife half the b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.ter. For asparagus tops you may subst.i.tute 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.

VEAL.

VEAL.--Do not buy veal unless the vein in the shoulder looks blue or bright red. If of any other color, the veal is not fresh. A calf's head should have the eyes full and prominent. If they are dull and sunken, the head is stale. The kidney should be well covered with firm white fat. All the fat must be firm, dry, and white, and the lean fine in the grain, and light colored. If any part is found clammy or discolored, do not buy that veal. The best pieces of the calf are the loin and the fillet. The loin consists of the best and the chump end; the hind knuckle, and the fore knuckle. The inferior pieces are the neck, blade-bone, and breast. The brisket end of a breast of veal is very coa.r.s.e, hard, and tough; the best end is rather better, having sweet-bread belonging to it.

Veal, like all other meat, should be well washed in cold water before cooking. Being naturally the most tasteless and insipid of all meat, it requires the a.s.sistance of certain articles to give it flavor. It is too weak to make rich soup without various additions. But well cooked, it is very nice as roasted loin, fillet, or fried cutlets.

ROAST LOIN OF VEAL.--Wash the meat well in cold water, wipe it dry, and rub it slightly with mixed pepper and salt. Make a stuffing of bread soaked in milk, or grated bread-crumbs, cold ham minced, sweet marjoram minced, and the juice and yellow grated rind of a lemon; also, a little fresh b.u.t.ter. Loosen with a sharp knife the skin, and put the stuffing under it, skewering down the flap to keep it in. Put the veal to roast before a strong clear fire, and pour a little water in the bottom of the roaster. Baste it with this till the gravy begins to run. Then baste it with that. Set the spit at first not very close to the fire, but bring it nearer as the roasting proceeds.

Send it to table with its own gravy, well skimmed and slightly thickened with a little flour.

Always choose a fine fresh loin of veal with plenty of fat about the kidney. No meat spoils so soon.

The breast and shoulder are roasted in the same manner as the loin, of which two dishes may be made, the kidney end, and the chump end.

FILLET OF VEAL.--When a fillet is to be roasted or baked, let it be well washed, and then dried in a clean towel. Take out the bone, fold the flap round, and skewer it to the meat. Make plenty of forcemeat or stuffing, of bread soaked in milk, or grated dry and mixed with plenty of fresh b.u.t.ter, or some of the fat or suet finely minced. Season with pepper, grated nutmeg, powdered mace, fresh lemon peel grated, and sweet marjoram and sweet basil minced fine. The hole that contained the bone must be stuffed full, and also the s.p.a.ce between the flap and the side of the meat. This should be secured by three skewers. Dredge the meat all over lightly with flour before you put it down. At first, place the spit at a distance from the fire, which should be strong and clear.

Then, as the meat begins to roast, set it nearer, and till the gravy begins to fall, baste it with fresh b.u.t.ter, or lard. Just before it is finished, (it will take about four hours,) dredge it with flour, and baste it well with its own gravy. When the meat is dished, skim the gravy, thicken it with a little flour, and pour it round the veal in the dish, or serve it in a sauce-boat.

A ham is the usual accompaniment to roast veal, whether fillet or loin.

ROAST VEAL HASHED.--Take whatever cold roast veal was left from yesterday. To prepare it for a breakfast dish, cut it into small bits, and put it (without any water) into a stew-pan, adding to it the veal gravy that was left from yesterday, and a table-spoonful of fresh b.u.t.ter or lard, dredged with flour. Cover it, and after stewing it half an hour by itself, put in two large table-spoonfuls of well spiced tomato catchup, an article no family should be without. After the catchup is in, cover the hash again, and let it stew half an hour longer. If you have no catchup, put in with the cold veal at the beginning, two or three large ripe tomatos, peeled and quartered, or sliced, and seasoned with powdered mace, nutmeg, and ginger; and let all stew together in gravy or b.u.t.ter. Mushroom catchup is a good subst.i.tute for tomato in has.h.i.+ng cold meat. If you have neither, put in a large table-spoonful of tarragon or French mustard, to be bought in bottles at all the best groceries.

Cold roast venison is very good hashed as above.

VEAL A-LA-MODE.--Remove the bone from a fillet of veal, and make a large quant.i.ty of forcemeat or stuffing of grated bread-crumbs; beef-suet or veal-suet minced fine, the grated yellow rind and juice of a ripe lemon or orange, or some chopped mushrooms that have been previously stewed, some grated yolk of hard-boiled eggs, and some sweet marjoram. Press in the stuffing, till the hole left by the bone is well filled; and also, put stuffing between the flap and the side of the meat, before you skewer the flap. Have ready some lardons or slips of cold ham, or tongue, and with a larding pin draw them all through the surface of the veal. Or else, make deep cuts or incisions throughout the meat, and press down into each a small thin square bit of bacon-fat, seasoning every one with a little of the stuffing. Lay the veal in a deep baking-pan, or iron bake-oven. Surround it with nice lard, and bake it till thoroughly done all through. Then take it out, skim the gravy, and transfer it to a small sauce-pan. Stir in a dessert-spoonful of flour; add a gla.s.s of white wine to the gravy, and give it one boil up. Send it to table in a sauce-tureen, accompanying the veal.