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MUTTON TEA (Invalid Cookery)
To a pound and a half of lean juicy mutton, cut into small dice and without bone, allow one pint of water; put the meat into a saucepan, and pour the water cold on it. Infuse this by the side of the fire for half an hour, then boil, add a little salt, and remove the scum. Simmer gently for another half hour, and let it settle, then strain, keeping back the sediment. If to be rewarmed set the basin in boiling water. Probable cost of mutton, 1s. per pound.
A clear mutton broth of the kind kept in the sickroom chapter of every Victorian cookery book. The method is essentially a cold-water extraction followed by a short simmer, and the whole point is clarity and flavour rather than body.
- The hinge: start cold, never boil hardThe hinge: start cold, then keep the heat low -- Pouring cold water on the diced meat and letting it stand draws out soluble protein and flavour before the heat sets it. The recipe does bring the pan to a boil once, to raise the scum for skimming, but the second half hour is a bare tremble; a sustained hard boil clouds the liquid.
- "By the side of the fire"On a range this meant a spot warm enough to take the chill off the pan but well short of a simmer. A burner on its lowest setting will give the same half-hour infusion; the aim is that the water never comes near bubbling.
- YieldA pint of water and 1 1/2 lb of meat will give something under a pint of finished tea once the sediment is held back, enough for a cup or two. It is meant to be drunk from a cup, not eaten as soup.
- The muttonTrue mutton -- sheep of two years or more, with hogget in between -- is rare outside halal and Caribbean butchers. Lamb shoulder or leg works, though the flavour is milder; use lean meat with no bone, as directed, since bone contributes gelatine and gives a broth that sets rather than a clear tea.
- Skimming and fatSkim as it comes to the boil, then chill the strained liquid and lift the solid fat cap off before rewarming. Victorian invalid cookery commonly warned against fat on the surface of a broth given to the sick.
- Rewarming in a water bathSetting the basin in boiling water, rather than putting it back on direct heat, keeps the tea from clouding and from developing the flat, overcooked taste of reboiled broth.
- The spent meatAfter an hour in water the dice are grey and nearly flavourless; the recipe says nothing about what to do with them.
- KeepingUnsalted or lightly salted meat broth is a good bacterial medium. Refrigerate within two hours and use within two days, or freeze; the original assumed it would be drunk the same day.
- The price noteMutton at 1s. per pound is consistent with later nineteenth-century retail prices; at that rate the pound and a half behind one cup of tea was not a trivial outlay.
"Invalid cookery" was a standing department in nineteenth-century household manuals, and meat teas were its backbone: beef tea, mutton tea, veal broth, chicken panada. The reasoning behind them owed much to Liebig's mid-century claim that the water-soluble extract of meat carried its nourishing virtue, which is why so many of these recipes throw away the solids and keep the liquid -- the opposite of what nutritional science would later say, since the extract is mostly flavour compounds, minerals and a little protein. Mutton was sometimes preferred to beef when a lighter, less "heating" drink was thought suitable, a distinction that echoes older humoral thinking and persisted in domestic advice. The emphasis on clarity, skimming and gentle reheating reflects a period when a patient's willingness to swallow anything at all was the practical measure of success.