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Mutton, Loin of, Stewed, with Pickles
Having roasted a loin of mutton until nearly done, cut off from three to four pounds of the chump end, and pare the fat to within an eighth of an inch. Put three large mushrooms into a stewpan with half a pint of mutton gravy, and stew them for a few minutes; then put in the meat, and add a tea-spoonful of soy, two of chutney, a table-spoonful of shallot vinegar, and a quarter of a pint or more of mixed pickles; add of salt and cayenne about half a grain. While stewing, keep the mutton well moistened with the gravy; remove the fat before serving, and send to table very hot. Time, an hour and a half to stew underdone mutton. Sufficient for four persons.
This is a made-over dish: a loin already roasted for one meal, finished the next day in a sharp, sweet-sour gravy. The seasonings are Anglo-Indian condiments, and the amounts want translating.
- The chump endThe chump is the thick rump end of the loin, next to the leg. Ask for a loin with the chump left on, or use any bone-in loin section weighing 3-4 lb; roast it to about 130-135F internal so it is genuinely underdone before the stewing begins.
- Roasting first"Nearly done" means the joint comes out well short of finished. The book gives no oven temperatures; a hot oven for the first twenty minutes and a moderate one thereafter will get you there, and the second cooking does the rest.
- SoyNineteenth-century "soy" is soy sauce, then sold as a bottled table sauce. A teaspoon of dark soy or a Chinese-style dark soy gives the colour and depth intended.
- Shallot vinegarSimply wine or cider vinegar in which sliced shallots have steeped for a week or two. Substitute a tablespoon of red wine vinegar with a finely minced shallot if you have none standing.
- Mixed picklesNot dill spears but the British jar of cauliflower, onion, cucumber and gherkin in spiced malt vinegar. A quarter of an imperial pint is about five fluid ounces, a generous half-cup, drained loosely; piccalilli will do at a pinch but is thicker and mustard-heavy.
- "Half a grain" of salt and cayenneA grain is about 65 mg, so half a grain is a barely visible speck and cannot be what is meant for a four-person dish. Read it as a pinch of each, and season at the end since soy, chutney and pickle vinegar all carry salt.
- The gravy, and the timeHalf a pint is a generous cup, about ten fluid ounces, of mutton stock or pan juices. An hour and a half at a bare simmer, basting, is a long haul for meat already roasted; check at 45 minutes and stop when the joint is hot through and the sauce has reduced to a glaze, or the outside will shred while you wait.
- DegreasingMutton fat sets hard and tastes tallowy when it cools on the plate. Lift the joint, skim the sauce thoroughly as directed, and serve on heated plates.
Cassell's belongs to a period when a large joint was expected to reappear at a second and third meal, and made dishes and rechauffés occupy a substantial section of such books. The seasoning here is thoroughly late-Victorian: bottled soy, chutney and cayenne came into the English kitchen through the East India trade, and by the later nineteenth century they were widely sold as ready-made sharpness for cold or reheated meat. Mutton, then the common roast of British households and stronger in flavour than modern lamb, took well to that kind of acid and spice on a second day; the jar of mixed pickles, tipped in rather than served alongside, suggests the leftover joint was thought to need rescuing rather than merely warming.