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Braised Leg of Mutton
Remove bone, trim, wipe with wet cloth, stuff, sew and tie it up. Put two tablespoons of shortening in braising pan and, when melted, add one-half onion, one slice carrot and one of turnip, all cut fine. Stir for 5 minutes and then put in the mutton dredged with flour; cover and cook slowly for 15 minutes; add one quart of boiling water or stock and one and one-half teaspoons salt, and twelve peppercorns. Cover closely and bake three hours, uncovering for the last half hour. Place meat on hot platter and remove strings. Skim off some of the fat from liquor in braising pan, boil rapidly until reduced to one and three-fourths cups. Strain, thicken with three tablespoons shortening and four tablespoons flour cooked together until well browned. Serves 10.
A classic oven braise: sear, aromatics, liquid, long slow cooking. The original assumes you know both what stuffing to use and how hot the oven should be.
- Oven temperatureNo number is given. A three-hour covered braise of this size wants a slow-to-moderate oven, 325F, hot enough to hold a bare simmer in the pan but no more. If the liquid is galloping, drop to 300F.
- Mutton and its substituteMutton means mature sheep; definitions vary, generally over a year old and often two years or more. It is strongly flavoured and rarely sold in the United States now. A 5-6 lb bone-in leg of lamb is the practical stand-in; boned and rolled it may be tender in nearer 2 to 2 1/2 hours than three, so check earlier.
- ShorteningIn a book of this vintage this most likely means lard, beef drippings or a vegetable shortening. Any of those works; butter is the poorer choice for the browning stage, as its milk solids can brown too far.
- The stuffing is left to youThe recipe says only "stuff." A plain bread stuffing of soft crumbs, melted fat, onion, salt, pepper and sage or savory would be a period-appropriate choice. Pack it loosely into the bone cavity, then sew and tie so the roll holds its shape.
- Tying and searingButcher's twine, snug loops every inch or so. Dredging with flour then covering for fifteen minutes steams as much as it browns; for better colour, brown the floured meat uncovered on all sides before adding liquid.
- Uncovering at the endThe last half hour without a lid is what glazes the outside and concentrates the liquor. Do not skip it, and do not add more water when you do.
- The sauceThree tablespoons fat to four tablespoons flour is a brown roux; cook it until it smells nutty and is the colour of a copper penny, then whisk in the reduced 1 3/4 cups of strained liquor off the heat to avoid lumps. It will be a thick, old-fashioned gravy.
- Yield and restingServes 10 as written. Let the roll rest about 15 minutes after removing the strings, or the stuffing and juices will spill when you carve.
Braising - browning meat in fat, then cooking it slowly in a small amount of liquid in a closed pan - was a common American treatment for the tougher, stronger cuts of sheep, and mutton was more widely sold then than it is now. Boning a leg, filling the cavity with bread stuffing and tying it into a neat roll would have served two purposes in a household kitchen: it stretched a joint to feed ten, and it made carving a matter of slicing straight across rather than working around a bone. A long oven braise was the sort of dinner that could be put in and largely left. American mutton consumption fell sharply over the twentieth century, and the same recipe is now almost always made with lamb.