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Mutton, Leg of, Boned and Stuffed
Having removed the bone from a leg of mutton (a small one of five or six pounds), fill the space from which it was taken with a forcemeat made according to the following instructions. Shred finely four ounces of suet and two of ham; mix these with six ounces of bread-crumbs, and flavour with a tea-spoonful of minced thyme, marjoram, and basil, the same of parsley, and a couple of shallots; add a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Moisten with a couple of eggs, well beaten first, and work the whole together into a firm smooth paste. Keep the forcemeat from falling out into the dripping-pan during the process of cooking by sewing up the opening, and roast before a brisk fire; give the mutton twenty minutes to the pound. Or if a more savoury dish be preferred, pound the solid parts of a couple of good red herrings to a paste. Season highly with pepper, and by detaching the skin from the thickest part of the joint, force the paste under and secure well. Those persons who have eaten a leg of mutton thus prepared pronounce it excellent. The mutton thus stuffed need not be boned. Trim off the fat from the joint before putting it to the fire. Baste with good dripping. For sauce, add to the gravy of the meat a small glassful of sherry, an anchovy pounded, and pepper and salt to taste; boil for a few minutes; thicken with butter rolled in flour, and serve in a tureen with half the juice of a lemon squeezed into it. Probable cost, 1s. per pound. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A Victorian roast that works well today, with two quite different stuffings offered: a herbed suet forcemeat inside the bone cavity, or a pounded red herring paste slipped under the skin. The main adjustments are oven method and cooking time.
- TimingTwenty minutes to the pound suits a spit before an open fire, where much of the heat is radiant and uneven. In a 350F oven a boned and stuffed 5-6 lb leg needs roughly 15-18 minutes per pound; go by an instant-read thermometer in the meat, not the stuffing cavity: 130-135F for pink, 145F for medium. Rest 20 minutes before carving.
- BoningAsk a butcher to tunnel-bone the leg rather than butterfly it, so there is a closed pocket to fill. Keep the bone for the gravy. Sewing the opening shut with kitchen twine and a trussing needle, as directed, genuinely matters; the forcemeat contains egg and suet and will run out of an unsecured pocket.
- SuetFresh beef suet from a butcher is best; packaged shredded suet (including vegetarian versions) works. It is there to keep the crumb stuffing moist, so do not substitute lean fat-free alternatives.
- Red herringA red herring is a whole herring heavily salted and hard-smoked until dry and reddish, quite unlike a modern kipper. Two of them pounded to a paste is a very salty, very assertive quantity; drained salted anchovies or a small amount of anchovy paste give a similar effect on a modern palate. Add no extra salt if you go this route.
- Herb quantities"A tea-spoonful of minced thyme, marjoram, and basil" is ambiguous: it may mean a teaspoon of each or a teaspoon of the three together. "Minced" implies fresh herbs; if using dried, about a third of the volume is plenty. Two shallots should be minced very fine so they cook through in the stuffing.
- Basting fat"Good dripping" is rendered beef or pork fat. Since the recipe tells you to trim the joint's own fat off, you need an outside source; beef dripping, lard or clarified butter all work, spooned over every 20 minutes.
- The saucePan juices from a trimmed leg will be scant. Roast the reserved bone alongside and deglaze the pan with a little stock as well as the sherry. Butter rolled in flour is beurre manie: work equal weights together cold, then whisk in off the boil so it thickens without lumping.
- YieldSix or seven, as stated, from a small leg with stuffing. The 1s. per pound is a late nineteenth-century British price and has no useful modern equivalent.
Cassell's was written for households buying whole joints and roasting them in front of the kitchen range on a bottle jack or spit, which is why the instruction is "roast before a brisk fire" rather than a temperature. Boning a leg to make room for forcemeat was common English practice for stretching meat and adding seasoning to a joint that carves plainly, and the suet-and-crumb stuffing here is close to the basic mixture used for veal, hare and poultry in nineteenth-century cookbooks. The red herring variant is the more striking detail: hard-cured herring was cheap and kept well, and the fish note under roast mutton, echoed in the pounded anchovy in the sauce, sits alongside a wider English taste for salted fish and pungent sauces with meat, the same taste that made anchovy and ketchup fixtures of the period's gravy. The remark that "those persons who have eaten a leg of mutton thus prepared pronounce it excellent" reads as the book passing along a trick at second hand rather than vouching for it itself.