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Mutton Broth, to Make
INGREDIENTS for 1½ pint of broth.-1 lb. of the scrag end of the neck of mutton, 1 onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, 1/2 turnip, 3 pints of water, pepper and salt to taste. AVERAGE COST, 7d.
Put the mutton into a stewpan: pour over the water cold and add the other ingredients. When it boils skim it very carefully, cover the pan closely, and let it simmer very gently for an hour; strain it, let it cool, take off all the fat from the surface, and warm up as much as may be required, adding, if the patient be allowed to take it, a teaspoonful of minced parsley which has been previously scalded. Pearl barley or rice are very nice additions to mutton broth, and should be boiled as long as the other ingredients. When either of these is added the broth must not be strained, but merely thoroughly skimmed.
Plain mutton broth without seasoning is made by merely boiling the mutton, water and salt together, straining it, letting the broth cool, skimming all the fat off, and warming up as much as is required. This preparation would be very tasteless and insipid, but likely to agree with very delicate stomachs, whereas the least addition of other ingredients would have the contrary effect.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. Veal broth may be made in the same manner; the knuckle of a leg or shoulder is the part usually used for this purpose. It is very good with the addition of the inferior joints of a fowl, or a few shank-bones.
Mutton Broth, To Make Quickly. INGREDIENTS for pint of broth.-1 or 2 chops from a neck of mutton, 1 pint of water, a small bunch of sweet herbs, of an onion, pepper and salt to taste.
AVERAGE COST, 5d.
Cut the meat into small pieces; put it into a saucepan with the bones, but no skin or fat; add the other ingredients; cover the saucepan and bring the water quickly to boil. Take the lid off and continue the rapid boiling for 20 minutes, skimming it well during the process; strain the broth into a basin; if there should be any fat left on the surface remove it by laying a piece of thin paper on the top; the greasy particles will adhere to the paper, and so free the preparation from them. To an invalid nothing is more disagreeable than broth served with a quantity of fat floating on the top; to avoid this it is always better to allow it to get thoroughly cool, the fat can then be so easily removed.
TIME.-20 minutes after the water boils.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Mutton, Haunch of, To Carve. -A deep cut should, in the first place, be made quite down to the bone, across the D HAUNCH OF MUTTON.
C knuckle-end of the joint, along the line A to B. This will let the gravy escape, and then it should be carved, in not too thick slices, along the whole length of the haunch in the direction of the line from D to C.
A plain invalid broth from the sickroom chapter, built on a cheap bony cut and very little else. It works as well now as it did then, provided the simmer stays gentle and the fat is taken off cold.
- The cutScrag end is the bony top of the neck, still sold by traditional butchers but often absent from supermarket counters. Neck fillet on the bone, middle neck, or a mix of chops and shank bones will give the same gelatine and flavour; boneless meat alone will not.
- Yield and ratioThree pints of water to 1 lb of meat reduces to about 1½ pints, roughly 850 ml — two or three servings. The loss is deliberate, so do not top the pan up.
- The hinge: never let it gallopA bare shiver, with the surface barely trembling, keeps the broth clear. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat back into the liquid and the result turns cloudy and greasy no matter how well you skim it.
- An hour is shortSixty minutes suits a small quantity of thin neck meat and gives a light broth. For more body from bones, two to three hours does no harm, though the meat itself will be spent.
- Barley and ricePearl barley wants about 40 minutes, long-grain rice about 20, so add them partway rather than at the start if you want them intact. As the recipe says, once they are in the pot you skim rather than strain.
- DefattingChilling overnight lets the fat set into a cap you lift off whole — far more effective than the blotting-paper trick, which is only for broth wanted at once.
- Sweet herbsThe recipe does not say what goes in the bunch. In period usage it was typically some combination of parsley, thyme, marjoram and a bay leaf. Tie it with kitchen string so it can be pulled out rather than fishing for leaves later.
- SeasoningSalt lightly at the start and correct at the end; the liquid loses half its volume and an early heavy hand concentrates into something inedible.
Mutton broth here belongs to the Victorian sickroom rather than the dinner table, which is why the instructions turn on whether "the patient be allowed" minced parsley. Nineteenth-century medical advice tended to treat invalid cookery as a graded scale, beginning with the plainest possible liquid and adding seasoning, cereals and solids only as the patient improved — hence Beeton's note that unseasoned broth is insipid but "likely to agree with very delicate stomachs." The economics matter too: the recipe puts the cost of a pound of scrag end and three pints of water at sevenpence. Mutton, from older sheep than the lamb that largely displaced it in British butchery over the twentieth century, will generally give a stronger, more gelatinous stock than modern lamb. The parsley is scalded before adding, as the recipe directs.