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Sharp Sauce

or Sauce Piquante. - This is the same as the sauce known as Shalot sauce, with the sole difference that at the last moment pickled gherkins are added to it. Chop finely (but apart) three tablespoonfuls-one of shalots, one of gherkins, and one of parsley. Put the shalots into a stewpan with an ounce of butter, and according to the sharpness desired, from two to four tablespoonfuls Sheep's Head Broth of vinegar. Stir this over the fire till the vinegar is reduced--and, indeed, till the shalots absorb the whole of it that is left, which will be indicated by the butter becoming clear. Then add an ounce of flour, and a pint of broth, together with pepper, and it may be salt-but this will depend on the saltness of the broth. Let it boil for a quarter of an hour, and let it be skimmed. Lastly, add the parsley and gherkins. Boil it up again, and if need be, skim again.

SHEEP'S HEAD BROTH (the grand Scotch receipt).- A. sheep's head and trotters are singed, and are usually sent for this purpose to a blacksmith's forge. They might be singed with a red-hot iron in the kitchen, but it makes a smell which is apt to steal through the house. After singeing they are soaked in cold water or in several waters for two hours; and afterwards lightly scraped and trimmed so as to remove excess of blackness, though without destroying that burnt flavour which the singeing is meant to produce. The head is then to be split and to be rubbed over with the brains.

Put the head and the trotters on the fire with two gallons of cold water and half a pound of Scotch barley. Add pepper and salt, take off the scum as it rises, and simmer it for at least four hours. When it is about half done throw in a pint of carrots cut into dice. An hour before it is ready put in the same allowance of turnips, together with some chopped onions-in summer-time a few green peas. The soup may be served at once. The sheep's head, by universal consent, is best cold. In every manse throughout Scotland the minister eats sheep's head broth on Saturday while he is preparing his sermon, and cold sheep's head for his Sunday dinner. That is why the sermons of the Kirk are so good. As for the trotters, though they improve the soup, they cannot be eaten cold, and it is best to serve them separately in a Poulette sauce.

Shoulder of Mutton SHEEP'S TROTTERS in the Poulette way. Let them be singed, well washed, blanched, and boned; then simmered in a faggot of pot-herbs for four or five hours-Faggot No. 6-drained and served in the Poulette relish-Relish No. 5.

SHOULDER OF MUTTON is a joint about which there would be less controversy if people knew how to carve it. Always at the butcher's ranked as a second-class joint, many people will have nothing to say to it; while others, again, declare that it is the Cinderella of meat-a beauty misunderstood and fit for princes. In nine cases out of ten, when mine host carves this joint he takes the inferior slices and sends down the best to be enjoyed by his servants. He helps himself from the bend of the joint, where he can cut easiest, and he sends away the bladebone, where the most perfect morsels lie. Many cookery books give elaborate directions how to carve ; but not one points out that the best of the shoulder of mutton is to be found on the upper surface of the bladebone, against the ridge, and that after that the under part of the blade is richest in dainty morsels.

The shoulder of mutton is usually roasted, but being flat and comparatively thin, is easily grilled; and a carbonade of it, or to speak more strictly, of its blade, has for centuries been a celebrated dish. But let no one be deceived by French receipts. Let the reader go back to the word carbonade, and understand what it really means. It is a broil which has been first slashed and scored, as in devilled meats, in order to be penetrated by pepper, salt, and other condiments-but above all by the taste of the fire. This we can understand. In this sense the bladebone of mutton makes an admirable carbonade. But the French cooks have determined, for the glory of the Prince of Soubise, that in their sense a carbonade of mutton shall mean a bladebone planted or larded all over with fat bacon and Shrimp Sauce then stewed or brazed with a goodly faggot of vegetables. Let Mossoo have this if he likes it ; but John Bull, having easy access to the Southdowns, where the wethers grow fragrant on banks of thyme and trefoil, is apt to turn almost an Israelite when he hears of a proposal to dibble his shoulders of mutton with splinters of bacon. The carbonade of mutton is sometimes called the Cavalier's broil; and sometimes also it is parboiled before being scored, peppered, and sent to the grill. Whether roasted or carbonaded, the favourite garniture for shoulder of mutton has long been stewed onions-whole, or sliced, or mashed. For whole onions choose Spanish; for a mash take the Soubise or the Breton receipt.