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Roasted Rolled Loin of Mutton
Take a loin of mutton weighing about three pounds, remove all the bones, take out the fillet and mince it very fine. Add to the mince an equal quantity of breadcrumbs, one minced shallot, a little chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste and sufficient egg to make it into a stiff paste. Put this on the mutton, tie it over tightly with a string, rub it well with flour, sprinkle some salt and pepper over it and place it in a slow oven to roast. Put a few onions into a fryingpan with the bones, fry them until they are brown, pour in a little stock and thicken with flour. Place the meat when done on a dish, pour the gravy round, and serve with a garnish of glazed onions.
A boned loin rolled around a forcemeat made from its own fillet — an economical hotel joint that depends on even tying and a genuinely low oven.
- Mutton versus lambMutton is sheep over a year old, often two or more, stronger flavored and firmer; it is hard to find at most American butchers now. A boneless lamb loin of the same weight behaves much the same way but is milder and cooks faster, so lean on the thermometer rather than the clock.
- "Slow oven"Read that as 300-325F. At this temperature a 3 lb rolled loin will take roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Because the centre is minced meat bound with raw egg rather than solid muscle, take it to at least 145F at the core of the stuffing and rest it 15 minutes.
- The filletThis is the small tenderloin lying under the loin bones, not the eye of the loin itself. Removing it is what gives you the meat for the stuffing; if your cut has no fillet, an equivalent weight of trimmed shoulder or leg minced fine will do.
- Ask the butcherHave the loin boned but insist on keeping the bones — the gravy is built entirely on them. Bone it yourself only if you are comfortable working around the chine and rib ends.
- Binding the forcemeat"Sufficient egg" is usually one, sometimes only a yolk. The paste should hold its shape on a spoon; too much egg makes the stuffing rubbery once it sets inside the roll.
- TyingButcher's twine at 1-inch intervals, tight enough to compress the roll without squeezing the stuffing out the ends. A loose roll cooks unevenly and the forcemeat falls away at carving.
- The gravyBrown the bones and onions in the pan, deglaze with stock, and thicken with flour cooked into the fat first, or the sauce will taste raw and pasty. Strain it before it goes round the dish.
- Glazed onionsSmall peeled onions simmered in stock with a little butter and sugar until the liquid reduces to a syrupy coating — 20 to 30 minutes for pearl or cipollini.
- YieldAbout four servings, or six if the plate carries substantial vegetables.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf, and his 1896 book records the kind of cooking a large hotel kitchen turned out daily rather than the showpieces. Mutton was still ordinary meat in America at the turn of the century, suited to roasting whole, and eaten without apology; its near-disappearance from the market came later, and the reason often given — a popular account rather than a documented cause — is that wartime canned-mutton rations soured a generation on the flavor. Boning a loin, mincing the fillet into a forcemeat, and rolling the whole thing back up is classic French-trained hotel economy: nothing is wasted, the bones go straight into the gravy, and one modest joint carves into neat, uniform slices with stuffing running through the center of each.