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Mutton, Roast Saddle of
INGREDIENTS. - Saddle of mutton; a little salt. AVERAGE COST, 10d. per lb.
To insure this joint being tender, let it hang for ten days or a fortnight, if the weather permits. Cut off the tail and flaps and trim away every part that has not indisputable pretensions to be eaten, and have the skin taken off and skewered on again. Put it down to a bright, clear fire, and, when the joint has been cooking for an hour, remove the skin and dredge it SADDLE OF MUTTON. with flour. It should not be placed too near the fire, as the fat should not be in the slightest degree burnt, but kept constantly basted, both before and after the skin is removed. Sprinkle some salt over the joint; make a little gravy in the drippingpan; pour it over the meat, which send to table with a tureen of made gravy and redcurrant jelly. TIME.-A saddle of mutton weighing 10 the joint. Onion sauce, or stewed Spanish onions are usually sent to table with this dish, and sometimes baked potatoes.
TIME. A shoulder of mutton weighing 6 or 7 lbs., 1½ hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Note. Shoulder of mutton may be dressed in a variety of ways: boiled, and served with onion sauce; boned, and stuffed with a good veal forcemeat; or baked, with sliced potatoes in the dripping-pan.
Beeton's text here has been mangled in printing: the roasting time for the saddle drops out mid-sentence and the entry runs straight into a separate one for shoulder of mutton. Treat the saddle instructions as the recipe and ignore the stray shoulder timings.
- What the joint isA saddle is the whole unsplit loin of both sides, cut across the back with the bone in; Beeton's example weighs 10 lb. A butcher will usually cut one to order if given notice, and it needs a large roasting tin; two whole bone-in loins roasted side by side are the practical substitute.
- The hangingTen days to a fortnight of hanging is genuine dry-ageing and it is what makes the difference between tender and tough, but do not attempt it in a domestic kitchen or garage. Ageing requires a steady 32-38F with controlled airflow; buy meat already hung by a butcher who does it properly.
- Mutton or lambMutton means sheep over two years old, with darker, stronger, tighter-grained meat. It is sold now mainly by specialist and halal butchers; lamb will work but is milder and needs slightly less time, since mutton's older muscle benefits from being taken a little further.
- Fire to oven"A bright, clear fire" is a spit before an open hearth. In an oven, start at 425F for 20 minutes to set the fat, then drop to 350F for the remainder. Beeton's warning about not sitting too near the fire is about not scorching the fat; in an oven a rack answers the same end, keeping the joint off the tin's floor so the fat renders rather than fries.
- Timing and temperatureReckon roughly 15 minutes per pound for a saddle after the initial blast, so about 2 to 2½ hours for a 10 lb joint, but go by a thermometer in the thickest part of the loin away from bone: 130-135F for pink, 145F for the more thoroughly done meat the Victorians preferred. Rest it 20 minutes at least.
- The skin trickHaving the skin taken off and skewered back on is a Victorian device for keeping the surface from drying out during the long first hour, after which it comes away and the flour dredge gives a browned crust. A double layer of foil over the loin for the first hour, removed for the last stretch, does the same work.
- Gravy in the dripping-pan"A little gravy in the dripping-pan" means loosening the caramelised juices with stock or water once the fat is poured off; it is a thin jus, not a thickened sauce. The "made gravy" in the tureen is a separate, richer brown gravy built from bones and trimmings beforehand.
- YieldA 10 lb saddle serves 8 to 10 generously, carved in long strips parallel to the backbone rather than in chops. Redcurrant jelly is the accompaniment named for the saddle; the onion sauce belongs to the shoulder entry that has run into this one, though it is a period-correct partner for mutton generally.
The saddle was a favoured Victorian dinner-party joint: large enough to carve at table for a dozen, handsome enough to justify the ritual, and expensive at Beeton's quoted 10d. a pound when an agricultural labourer might earn ten to fifteen shillings a week. Mutton, not lamb, was the ordinary English roast meat of the nineteenth century, since sheep were kept for wool and for years before they were kept for meat, and breeds like the Southdown were prized for the flavour of their mature carcasses. The insistence on hanging reflects a period in which cool larders and game safes did the work now done by refrigeration, and the crucial phrase is "if the weather permits" - the technique was seasonal by necessity. Mutton lost ground in British favour over the course of the twentieth century, partly through the poor reputation of the mass-produced imported frozen carcasses that had fed the troops, and the saddle went with it; both are now largely the province of specialist butchers and revivalist kitchens.