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Curried Mutton
Put 4 ounces of butter into a stewpan, and pound 6 middle-sized onions in a mortar; add the onions to the butter with an ounce of curry powder, a teaspoonful of salt, a dessertspoonful of flour, and half a pint of cream. Stir until smooth. Fry 2 pounds of mutton, cut in neat pieces, without bone. Let them be of a light brown color. Lay the meat into a clean stewpan, and pour the curry mixture over. Simmer until the meat is done. Time, two hours to simmer. Sufficient, two pounds for four or five persons.
A straightforward braise in a curried cream sauce, written when "curry powder" was a single commercial blend and mutton was ordinary butcher's meat. The two things worth planning for are the onion paste and the long, gentle cook.
- Keep the cream below a simmerTwo hours of cream over direct heat will break or scorch if the pan is anything but very low. Use a heavy pan with a lid, keep the surface at a bare tremble, and stir up from the bottom every 20 minutes.
- Half a pint of creamOne cup if you read the measure as American, a generous 1 1/4 cups if the book is following the British 20-ounce pint. Either works; start with a cup and loosen with stock or water if the pan tightens.
- An ounce of curry powderAbout 4 tablespoons, a substantial amount by modern habit. Commercial blends of the period were generally milder than a hot contemporary madras powder; with a madras, begin with 2 tablespoons and taste after the first half hour.
- Pounding the onionsSix medium onions in a mortar is a food processor job now: pulse to a coarse paste, not a liquid. The paste is what thickens the sauce, so do not substitute chopped onion and expect the same body.
- StewpanA saucepan with straight sides and a lid, used on the stovetop. A Dutch oven or any heavy 4-quart pot serves.
- MuttonSheep past its first year (definitions vary, and some usage requires two years or more), rare in most markets. Lamb shoulder cut in 1 1/2-inch pieces is the usual stand-in; it will be sweeter and may be done sooner than the two hours given. Goat shoulder is closer in flavour if you can get it.
- The frying stepBrown the meat in batches in a separate pan and get real colour on it — pale, crowded meat gives a flat sauce, and nothing later in the method builds flavour.
- ServingFour to five portions as written. Plain long-grain rice, and something sharp alongside — lime pickle or chutney — to cut the butter and cream.
Curry entered British and then American household cookery largely through the East India Company trade, and by the middle of the nineteenth century curry powder was sold ready-mixed, which is why recipes of this era call for it by weight rather than listing spices. Mutton was a common choice for curry in domestic cookbooks: it was cheaper, stronger meat that gained from long stewing. The butter, cream and flour here are a thoroughly Anglo treatment, closer to a fricassee than to anything cooked in India, while the pounded onion paste echoes the technique it imitates.