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MUTTON, SHOULDER OF (a recipe by a Scotch lady)
Hang a shoulder of mutton until tender, and, when ready for cooking, put it before a bright clear fire for three-quarters of an hour, or, according to the weight of the shoulder, until half done. Remove the joint from the fire, and, as expeditiously as possible, score it on both sides. Put it again to the fire, first emptying the dripping-pan of the fat, and replacing it with the gravy that may have flowed while scoring, and enough of meat-gravy to make half a pint; add the same quantity of port wine, and a spoonful each of walnut and mushroom ketchup, with two fine anchovies boned and pulped, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Allow the usual time for roasting, but baste copiously with the above sauce. Rub the dish, when made hot, on which the mutton is to be served with cut garlic or shallot, and pour the sauce from the pan over it.
A Victorian roast built around a basting sauce of port, anchovy and ketchup, written for a joint turning on a spit before an open fire. The method transfers to an oven with little loss, provided the sauce is treated as a baste and finishing sauce rather than a braising liquid.
- The hinge: baste, don't drownThe sauce goes in the emptied dripping-pan and is spooned over the meat repeatedly so it reduces and glazes. If it pools deep around the joint the shoulder steams instead of roasting and the surface never takes colour.
- HangingHome hanging is not a domestic proposition now. Buy a shoulder that has already been dry-aged by the butcher; lamb or hogget shoulder of 4-5 lb is the practical modern equivalent of the older, stronger mutton.
- Fire to ovenFor open-fire roasting read a hot oven: start at 425F for 20-25 minutes to set the outside, then drop to 325-350F for the remainder. Reckon roughly 20 minutes per pound plus 20 for pink lamb, longer for well-done mutton.
- "Half done"The scoring pause comes at the halfway mark of total roasting time. Score the fat and flesh in a shallow diamond lattice, about a quarter-inch deep, so the sauce reaches below the surface.
- Half a pintAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, a shade under a US cup and a quarter. With an equal measure of port that is a pint of sauce in all, which is ample for a 5 lb shoulder.
- Walnut ketchupA thin, dark, spiced vinegar condiment made from green walnuts, still sold by some British specialists. Worcestershire sauce or a mushroom ketchup with a dash of red wine vinegar gives a comparable salty-sour depth.
- AnchoviesTwo salt-packed anchovies, rinsed, boned and mashed to a paste; two or three oil-packed fillets do the same work. They dissolve entirely and read as savour, not fish.
- DegreasingEmptying the fat from the pan before the sauce goes in is not optional. Pour off the drippings again before serving and skim the finished sauce, or the port and anchovy are lost under mutton fat.
- The garlic-rubbed dishA cut clove wiped round a hot platter perfumes the meat faintly without putting garlic in the sauce. It is the lightest possible touch and worth keeping.
- YieldA shoulder of this size serves six to eight. Rest it 15 minutes under foil before carving; the sauce can be reheated and reduced in that time.
The attribution to "a Scotch lady" is doing the work a brand name would do today: it signals an inherited household method rather than an editorial one, and Victorian compendia did carry recipes sent in or copied from correspondents. The dish itself belongs to a long English and Scottish habit of dressing mutton so that it eats like venison, and port wine with anchovy, cayenne and a spoonful of a walnut or mushroom ketchup is close to the venison-sauce vocabulary of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Walnut and mushroom ketchups were among the standard savoury bottles of a British kitchen, and anchovy was commonly used as a seasoning as much as a fish in this period. Scoring the part-roasted joint so the baste penetrates suits spit-roasting, and the recipe assumes a bright open fire in front of which the meat turns, with the dripping-pan below catching everything, which is why the sauce is made in the pan rather than in a separate pot.