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Grilled Slices of Mutton
Cut some rather thick slices of underdone cold mutton, score them well and rub well and rub in plentifully some common mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper; then broil them over a clear fire, and serve with onion sauce.
A leftovers dish: cold roast leg or shoulder, cut thick and given a hot crust on the grill. The whole point is that the meat starts out underdone, so the second cooking finishes it rather than ruining it.
- The hingeSlices go on the fire cold and come off the moment they are hot through and marked — two to three minutes a side over high heat. Mutton that was already cooked past pink will turn dry and grey no matter what you rub on it.
- Cut thickness"Rather thick" is not defined in the recipe; something in the region of 1/2 to 3/4 inch is a reasonable reading. Thinner slices cook through before they colour; thicker ones are hard to heat without overcooking the surface.
- ScoringThe recipe says only "score them well": shallow diagonal cuts across the face of each slice, deep enough to hold the mustard paste. Scoring also helps keep the slice from curling as the fat contracts.
- "Common mustard"Nineteenth-century English mustard: dry powder mixed with water to a stiff paste, sharp and hot. Prepared yellow mustard is a poor substitute; use Colman's or equivalent, made up fresh. The recipe gives no standing time, though a few minutes after rubbing does no harm.
- Broiling over a clear fireA "clear fire" is coals burned down past flame, with no smoke. Charcoal at high heat is the direct equivalent; under a gas or electric broiler, run it at maximum with the rack close to the element.
- Mutton itselfMutton means sheep over a year old, often two or more — stronger and fattier than lamb, and in many places hard to find outside halal and specialist butchers. Cold roast lamb works and is milder; expect to want more cayenne with it.
- Onion saucePeriod onion sauce is boiled onions chopped into a butter-and-milk sauce (what we would call béchamel), seasoned with salt and a little pepper or nutmeg. It is there to soften the mustard and cayenne, so make it plain rather than sharp.
- YieldFigure two to three slices per person as a main, one as a breakfast dish. Salt lightly if the mutton was well seasoned when first roasted.
Grills and "devils" of this kind belong to the economy of a household that roasted large joints and expected to eat them for days. The technique — cold cooked meat scored, coated with mustard and cayenne, and seared over coals — was standard in British cookery books through the nineteenth century, and turns up in American ones like Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878) largely unchanged, since Virginia cookery drew heavily on English models. The heat of the mustard and pepper does double duty: it flatters meat that has lost its first freshness, and it makes a dish suited to breakfast or a late supper. Marion Cabell Tyree's collection gathered such recipes from named contributors across the state.