Mutton Soup
2 pounds neck of mutton 2 quarts cold water 1 turnip Salt and pepper 1 onion 1 tomato 1 tablespoon pearl barley Put the mutton in a kettle with the water, vegetables sliced, barley and seasoning. Bring to a boil; skim off the fat and scum; place at the back of the stove to simmer slowly for three hours. Keep the vessel closely covered.
Turkey bones
A plain long-simmered broth of the sort that once sat at the back of a coal range all afternoon. The instructions are complete; only the equipment and the fat need modern attention.
- Neck of muttonMutton means sheep over about two years old, rarely sold in the United States now. Lamb neck or shoulder chops work, or use bone-in lamb shanks; the flavour will be milder and less tallowy than the original intends.
- "Back of the stove"On a wood or coal range this was the coolest zone, holding a pot just below a boil. On a modern burner that is the lowest setting, or a low oven with the lid on. The surface should barely tremble.
- Skim more than onceThe recipe has you skim at the first boil, but mutton throws fat steadily. Skim again partway through, and if you can, chill the finished soup so the fat sets solid and lifts off in a sheet.
- Pearl barleyA tablespoon is a thickener, not a bulking agent, and it will swell several times over in three hours. Modern pearl barley is much the same product; do not substitute pot barley without extra liquid.
- Add the tomato late if you likeThree hours reduces a single tomato to nothing. Keeping it back for the last half hour gives brightness that the long simmer otherwise cooks out.
- Season at the endTwo quarts reducing under a tight lid for three hours still concentrates. Salt lightly at the start and correct once the soup is finished.
- YieldAbout six cups after simmering, serving four as a first course. The meat can be pulled off the bone, chopped and returned to the pot.
- The stray line"Turkey bones" at the end appears to be the heading of the next recipe carried over from the original page, not an ingredient here.
Mutton broth with barley and root vegetables is a long-standing dish in the English and Scottish kitchen and close kin to Scotch broth. It survived in American cookbooks chiefly as an economy dish: the neck is among the cheapest cuts on the animal, and the three-hour simmer is what makes it tender. The book dates from an era when mutton was still a common butcher's item in the United States; by mid-century American taste had shifted toward young lamb, and recipes like this one became scarce in general cookbooks.