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Mutton, Shoulder of, Roasted
This joint should be well hung; a fortnight in cold dry weather will not be found too much if for a roast. Rub one of six or seven pounds lightly with salt, and put it before a bright clear fire; baste continually until done, keeping it at eighteen inches distance from the fire to let the heat penetrate the middle. When within twenty minutes of being ready for serving, the joint should be drawn nearer to the fire, dredged slightly with flour, and basted to give it a frothed appearance. Have ready some boiled Spanish onions, glaze them, put the mutton on a hot dish, make a gravy from the drippings, garnish with the glazed onions, and send onion sauce to table in a tureen. Time, a quarter of an hour to the pound. Probable cost, 9 1/2d. to 10d. per pound. Sufficient for five or six persons.
This is spit-and-firescreen cookery: the joint hangs before an open fire rather than sitting in an oven, which changes both the timing and the technique. Translating it means deciding what the fire was doing and reproducing that with dry heat.
- The hangingA fortnight of hanging is proper dry-ageing, and it depended on a cold larder in cold weather — conditions a modern kitchen does not have. Buy meat already aged by a butcher rather than attempting this at room temperature.
- Mutton itselfMutton is sheep over two years old, darker and stronger than lamb and now sold mainly by specialist butchers. Hogget (one to two years) is the closest common substitute; lamb shoulder will work but is milder and cooks faster.
- Oven equivalentAn open fire at eighteen inches is radiant heat on one side with constant turning. In an oven, a shoulder of six to seven pounds does best at 325F, or 300F for a longer, softer roast — shoulder is a worked joint full of connective tissue and rewards patience more than speed.
- That quarter-hour to the poundFifteen minutes per pound gives an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters for a joint of six to seven pounds, which is a fire-roasting figure and assumes constant basting. In an oven, work to internal temperature instead: about 145F for pink, or take it well past 190F if you want the shoulder pulling away from the bone.
- FrothingThe flour dredge and final basting near the fire is the Victorian method for a crisp, blistered surface. In an oven, raise the heat to 425F for the last fifteen minutes after dredging, rather than moving the joint.
- BastingContinual basting matters at a fire because only one face is heated at a time. In a closed oven it does little for browning; baste two or three times and leave the door shut otherwise.
- Spanish onionsLarge mild yellow onions, boiled whole until tender then finished in butter and a little of the pan juices until glossy. The accompanying onion sauce is a white sauce with soft-cooked chopped onion beaten through it.
- Cost and yieldThe price is pre-decimal, roughly tenpence a pound, and is of historical interest only. Five or six servings is realistic for this size of joint; allow the meat to rest twenty minutes before carving.
Cassell's belongs to the last decades in which mutton, not lamb, was the default British sheep meat — animals were often kept for wool and eaten once mature, and cooks valued the deeper flavour that age gave. The shoulder was the cheaper of the two big roasting joints, fattier and more awkward to carve than the leg; the mutton-and-onion combination is long-standing in English cookery and appears in household books well before this one. The instruction to hang the joint for a fortnight reflects a house with a cold north-facing larder rather than any refrigeration, and the eighteen-inch rule is a genuine piece of open-fire craft: too close and the outside sets before the heat reaches the centre. Mutton fell out of general sale in Britain during the twentieth century as sheep farming shifted toward fast-grown lamb.