Home › M › Mutton, Boiled Leg of
Mutton, Boiled Leg of
INGREDIENTS. Mutton, water, salt. AVERAGE Cost, 10d. per lb.
A leg of mutton for boiling should not hang too long, as it will not look a good colour when dressed. Cut off the shankbone, trim the knuckle, and wash and wipe it very clean; plunge it into sufficient boiling water to cover it, let it boil up, then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, where it should remain till the finger can be borne in the water. Then place it sufficiently near the fire that the water may gently simmer, and be very careful that it does not boil fast, or the meat will be hard.
Skim well, add a little salt, and in about 2¼ hours after the water begins to simmer a moderate-sized leg of mutton will be done. Serve with carrots and mashed turnips, which may be boiled with the in a tureen.
TIME.-A moderate-sized leg of mutton of 9 lbs., 2½ hours after the water boils; one of 12 lbs., rather more than 3 hours.
SEASONABLE nearly all the year, but not so good in June, July and August.
Note. When meat is liked very thoroughly cooked, allow more time than stated above. The liquor this joint was boiled in should be converted into soup. Mutton, Boned Leg of, Stuffed. -INGREDIENTS. A small leg of mutton, weighing 6 or 7 lbs., forcemeat, 2 shalots finely minced.
Make a forcemeat, to which add 2 finelyminced shalots. Bone the leg of mutton without spoiling the skin, and cut off a great deal of the fat. Fill the hole up whence the bone was taken, with the forcethe bone was taken, with the forcemeat, and sew it up underneath to prevent its falling out. Bind and tie it up compactly, and roast it before a nice clear fire for about 2½ hours, or rather longer; remove the tape and send it to table with a good gravy. It may be glazed or not as preferred.
TIME. 2½ hours, or rather longer.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A large joint poached rather than boiled — the whole method rests on keeping the water below a true boil. Two entries run together here: the boiled leg, and a boned leg stuffed with forcemeat and roasted.
- Never let it boilThe hinge of the recipe. Bring the water up once, then hold it at a bare shiver, around 180–190F, with the surface barely moving. Anything approaching a rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and the meat turns dry and stringy.
- TimingReckon roughly 15 minutes per pound after the water first comes up, which is about what the time note gives: 2 hours for 9 lb and rather more than 3 hours for 12 lb. A thermometer is more reliable than the clock: 145–150F at the thickest part leaves the meat faintly pink, 160F and above for the "very thoroughly cooked" result mentioned in the note.
- Mutton versus lambMutton means sheep over a year old, usually two or more — deeper in flavour, firmer, fattier. It is sold by some halal and specialist butchers and worth seeking out, but a leg of hogget or a mature lamb leg will behave the same way; reduce the time a little as lamb legs are usually smaller.
- Vessel and waterYou need a stockpot deep enough to submerge a 9–12 lb leg completely, which in practice means 12 quarts or more. Cutting off the shank, as directed, will also help it fit. Top up with boiling water if the level drops below the meat.
- Salt"A little salt" for several gallons of water seasons almost nothing. Salt the water properly — about 1 tablespoon per gallon — or salt the carved meat at table.
- The accompanimentBoiled leg of mutton was served in this period with caper sauce, a white sauce sharpened with capers and a little of their vinegar. Carrots and mashed turnips are the vegetables; the turnips may be cooked in the mutton liquor.
- The cooking liquorStrain it, chill it, and lift off the solid cap of fat. It makes a good base for barley or vegetable broth, and the fat itself is worth keeping for roasting potatoes.
- The stuffed legFor the second recipe, the forcemeat is presumably Beeton's usual breadcrumb, suet and herb mixture, extended here with minced shallot. Any raw forcemeat containing meat must reach the same internal temperature as the joint, so check the centre of the stuffing, not just the muscle.
- YieldA 9 lb leg on the bone serves 10–12 generously, with enough left for cold cuts the following day.
Boiling a leg of mutton was one of the great plain dishes of the nineteenth-century English kitchen: it needed no oven, only a large pot and steady heat, which suited coal ranges and small households alike. The seasonal note — that mutton is poorer in June, July and August — reflects a trade in which sheep were fattest in autumn and winter and thinnest after lambing and before summer grass had done its work; before refrigeration, that rhythm still governed what the butcher had to sell. Caper sauce, the near-invariable partner, gave the acidity that cut a fatty, mature joint, and the instruction to turn the cooking liquor into soup is characteristic of Beeton's whole outlook, where nothing bought by weight was allowed to go down the drain. Mutton itself largely disappeared from British and American butchers' shops over the twentieth century as consumers came to prefer the milder flavour of young lamb.