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Roasted Haunch of Mutton
Select a haunch of mutton that has been hanging for about two weeks, remove all the skin that covers the fat, take out the shank bone, cover it with well buttered paper, and put it in a hot oven to roast. Baste frequently, and when it has been cooking for about two hours, take off the paper to allow the meat to brown; dust it over with salt, a little flour, and baste with butter. When quite done place it on a dish, put a paper frill on the shank bone, pour over one wineglassful of sherry wine mixed with some gravy, and serve with red currant jelly sauce.
A plain large roast from the Waldorf's kitchen, written for cooks who had a butcher hanging carcasses in the back and an oven with no dial. Two things need translating: the cut, and the heat.
- What a haunch isThe haunch is the whole hind leg with the hip and part of the loin attached, usually 8 to 14 lb. A butcher will need notice to cut one; a bone-in leg of lamb of 6 to 8 lb behaves the same way and is the easier substitute.
- Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over about two years old, stronger in flavour and firmer than lamb. It is sold in Britain and by halal butchers but is rare in American supermarkets. Substituting lamb means less time, not more.
- The two weeks of hangingThis is dry-ageing, done in the period in a cool larder or the butcher's chill room. Do not attempt it at room temperature at home; buy meat already dry-aged if the flavour matters to you.
- "A hot oven"Roughly 425 to 450F. Oscar starts hot and shields the meat with buttered paper, which is essentially a sear-then-protect method; parchment tied on with kitchen twine does the job of the buttered paper.
- Time and donenessTwo hours before uncovering suits a 10 lb haunch, but go by internal temperature rather than the clock: 130 to 135F at the thickest part of the leg for pink, 145F and up if you want it cooked through, as it more often would have been at the period. Rest it 20 minutes before carving.
- A wineglassfulAbout 2 fl oz, or a quarter cup. It is poured over at the end, unreduced, so use a sherry you would drink -- an amontillado rather than anything labelled cooking sherry.
- The flour dustingThe flour thrown on with the salt at the end is there to help the surface brown and crisp, not to thicken anything. Use it sparingly and baste immediately or it stays raw and pasty.
- Currant jelly sauce and the frillRed currant jelly warmed with a little of the pan gravy, often with port, is a common form of the sauce; Cumberland sauce is the dressier version. The paper frill on the shank is decoration only and can be skipped.
- YieldA haunch of this size serves 12 to 16; a 7 lb leg of lamb serves 8.
Roast haunch of mutton was one of the fixed points of nineteenth-century English hotel and club cookery, and that repertoire is well represented in the book Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maitre d'hotel, published in 1896. The insistence on two weeks' hanging is the key to the period's taste: mutton was valued precisely for the depth that age brought. The pairing with red currant jelly is older still, part of a long British habit of serving sweet-tart fruit preserves with rich roasted meat, mutton and venison especially. Mutton's near-disappearance from American menus came later, as lamb was marketed as the milder, more genteel option, and by the mid-twentieth century a dish like this had become a period piece rather than a staple.