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Roasted Loin of Mutton
Follow the directions given for roast leg in every particular, but trim off all unnecessary fat, which may be used for a common suet crust. If the fat be not turned to account there is no more expensive joint than a loin of mutton. Cover the fat with paper until within a quarter of an hour of its being done, then remove, baste, and flour slightly, to get it frothed. Time, a quarter of an hour to the pound. Sufficient, six pounds for five or more persons.
A short entry that leans on the book's earlier instructions for roast leg, so the only real content here concerns the fat cap and the final browning. Both need translating for a modern oven.
- Mutton means lamb nowMutton is meat from a sheep over two years old, rarely sold in the United States and uncommon in most British supermarkets. A bone-in lamb loin or short saddle of 4-5 lb behaves the same way but cooks faster and tastes milder; genuine mutton needs a butcher's order.
- Oven heatFifteen minutes to the pound for a six-pound joint implies a brisk roasting heat, not a gentle one. Start at 450F for 20 minutes to set the fat, then drop to 375F for the rest.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockA quarter-hour per pound gives roughly 90 minutes for six pounds, which will overshoot on modern lamb. Pull the joint at 130-135F at the thickest point for medium-rare, or 145F for medium (the USDA minimum for whole cuts of lamb), and rest it 15 minutes before carving.
- The paperA sheet of buttered parchment or a loose foil tent over the fat cap keeps it from scorching during the long roast. Remove it for the last 15 minutes as directed so the surface can crisp.
- Frothing"To get it frothed" means dredging the basted, hot fat with a light dusting of flour so it puffs and browns into a crisp, blistered crust. Use a fine sieve or a shaker, and do it only in the final minutes; flour added early will simply burn.
- Why the fat mattersThe instruction to save the trimmings is the whole economy of the joint. A common suet crust uses the hard fat chopped or grated raw rather than rendered, and the trimmings keep well frozen; discard them and this is, as the author says, an expensive cut.
- Basting liquidBaste with the pan drippings. This entry mentions no added liquid, and pouring stock into the pan will steam the fat instead of crisping it; the roast-leg directions it refers to are not reproduced on this page.
- YieldThe recipe gives six pounds bone-in as sufficient for 'five or more persons'.
Loin and saddle of mutton were prestige roasts of the Victorian and Edwardian table, but as this entry admits, they were only economical if the thick fat cap was put to work. Suet crust for boiled and steamed puddings was a staple of British kitchens, so fat trimmed from a roast could become the shell of a pudding or dumplings. "Frothing" a roast with flour in the last minutes appears in eighteenth-century spit-roasting instructions and survived into the coal-range era as a way to get a browned, crackled surface. The "quarter of an hour to the pound" rule appears across nineteenth-century English cookery books and reflects a kitchen with no thermometer, where weight and a good fire were the only variables a cook could measure.