Braised Mutton
Remove the bone from the leg or fore quarter. Stuff and follow rule for Braised Beef.
Ragoût of Mutton Use breast of fore quarter of mutton, or cold cooked mutton, and follow recipe for Beef Ragoût.
This is a cross-reference rather than a full method: the actual cooking is in the book's Braised Beef and Beef Ragoût entries. What follows fills in what a modern cook needs to carry it out.
- What braising meant hereA turn-of-the-century braise means the meat is browned in fat, then cooked covered with a small amount of liquid and aromatic vegetables until tender. Not a roast, and not a boil: an inch or so of stock in a heavy covered pot.
- Oven temperatureIf you finish it in the oven rather than on the stovetop, hold it at 300-325F. Anything hotter drives the liquid off and tightens the meat before the connective tissue has broken down.
- TimingA boned, stuffed and tied leg of 4-5 lb needs roughly 3 to 3 1/2 hours; a fore quarter or shoulder, which is fattier and better suited to this, takes about the same. Judge by a fork sliding out without resistance, not by the clock.
- Finding muttonMutton is usually taken to mean sheep past its first or second year (definitions vary), and it is uncommon in American supermarkets. Halal and Middle Eastern butchers are the reliable source; otherwise use a bone-in lamb shoulder and expect a milder, less gamy result and a shorter cooking time.
- Boning and stuffingTake the bone out from the wide end and keep the pocket intact, or have the butcher do it. Stuff loosely, since bread stuffing swells, and tie the joint at 1-inch intervals so it holds its shape through a long, wet cook. Keep the bones for the braising liquid.
- FatMutton fat is heavy and sets hard when cool. Trim the exterior fat down to a thin layer before browning, and skim the pot liquor thoroughly before making gravy from it, or chill it and lift the cap off.
- The ragout variationThe breast is a fatty, layered cut best cut into pieces and browned well; cold cooked mutton is added only near the end, since it is already tender and will fall to threads if stewed long.
- YieldA stuffed boned leg serves 8 to 10. It slices far more neatly the next day, and the reheated slices in their own gravy are arguably better than the first serving.
Lowney's Cook Book was compiled by Maria Willett Howard and issued in 1907 by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer — which explains the book's unusually generous chocolate chapters, and also its brisk, cross-referenced treatment of everything else. Mutton still had a regular place on American tables in 1907, though the move toward younger lamb was already under way and continued through the century. The instruction to bone, stuff and braise a fore quarter reflects a kitchen that expected to work with tough, mature meat and had the hours to soften it, and the tag-on ragout using cold cooked mutton is the same thrift in a shorter form: the second appearance of a large joint, stretched with vegetables and gravy.