MUTTON, BEEF AND HAMS
REMARKS ON BOILING MEATS
Meat, whether fresh or salted, smoked or dried, should always be put on the fire in cold water. Dried meats should be soaked before boiling. The delicacy of meat and fowls is preserved by carefully skimming while they are boiling.
STUFFED HAM
Smoked hams are much liked stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, which the only kind of stuffing a salt ham will admit, as bread, crackers or oysters would sour before the ham could be used. If you wish to stuff a ham, look at the recipe for “Aromatic Spices for seasoning Meat, Pies, etc.” Soak your ham all night, scrape it nicely, and boil it half an hour to make the skin tender; then take it from the pot, gash it all over, introduce as much of the pounded spices as the incisions will hold, and then close the skin over the gashes and boil in the same manner, with vegetables thrown in, as in recipe for boiled ham.
BAKED HAM
Soak and clean your ham, boil it with onions, cloves, parsley and sweet herbs until it is nearly done, then let it cool in its own liquor; when cold, pull off the skin and place the ham in the oven gate, with a little sugar and bread crumbs over it till it is brown. If it is to be eaten hot, serve with vegetables and some acid or piquant sauce; if cold, send up savory jelly, No. 21.
TO BOIL A HAM
Run a knife, or skewer, into the thickest part of the ham next the bone; if the knife comes out clean the ham is good, if it smells rank and smears the knife the ham is not good. Select your ham, then, according to this rule, and when good lay it in cold water; scrape and wash it carefully, and let it remain in the water all night. In the morning, when the water—enough to cover the ham—is nearly boiling lay the ham in, and keep the water in a simmer. When it has boiled about an hour throw in two carrots, four onions, two heads of celery, a sprig of parsley, two or three blades of mace and four cloves. If the ham is very salty, it is well to change the water before putting in the seasoning. To obtain tenderness and mellowness the ham must not be allowed to boil hard, only simmer. Too much heat hardens all meat, especially salt meat. When the ham is done set it off in its own water, let it cool in it; by this means it will retain its moisture. When cool take it out, skin it, and dredge sugar over it, set it in the oven till it browns, or hold a hot shovel over it.
DAUBE GLACEE OF BEEF, FOR COLD SUPPERS
Take a thick round of beef—from four to six inches is the best size—make holes in it and stuff them with salted pork or bacon; roll each piece, before it is drawn through the beef, in pepper, salt, sugar, and vinegar, with minced parsley, and a very little minced garlic. If the weather is cold it will be better to keep the meat till the next day before cooking it. Boil two calf’s feet or four pig’s feet until they drop to pieces; pick out the bones and strain the liquor; set it away to jelly, or put it on ice to make it jelly. The next morning, put one half the jelly in a large stew pan, then add the beef, and cover it with the remainder of the jelly. Paste the pan over very tight or cover it extremely well, so that none of the flavor can escape. Cook this about four hours; when done, take out, cover with the liquor, and set it aside till it is jellied. This is delicious to eat cold, for suppers and collations.
BOILED BRISKET OF BEEF, STUFFED
A piece weighing about eight pounds requires five or six hours to boil. Before boiling the beef make a dressing of bread crumbs, pepper, butter, salt, sweet herbs, mace, and an onion, all chopped fine and mixed with a beaten egg. Put the dressing between the fat and the lean of the beef; sew it up to keep the dressing in. Flour a cloth, tie the beef up tight in it, and let it boil five or six hours.
ROUND OF BEEF STEWED BROWN
Make incisions in the beef and stuff with chopped onions, salt, pepper, and sweet basil, thyme and parsley. Dredge the meat with flour, lay some slices of bacon over it, and put it to brown in a close oven. Slice two turnips, four carrots, four salsifies, three stalks of celery and two onions; add a quarter of a cup of tomato catsup or two large tomatoes; season with salt and put all in the oven to cook with the meat. After it has been cooking in the oven two hours and is brown, add a cup of water with the vegetables. Cover again closely, and let this stew for one or two hours more, or until the meat and vegetables are tender.
TO FRY A STEAK TO TASTE AS IF BROILED
It sometimes happens that when the fire is low and the coals gone out, you are called on to cook a steak. Then get up a quick blaze in the stove with some kindlings. Put in a pan, over the blaze, a little butter; when it is hot lay in your steak; let it fry quickly; while frying cover the pan. Work some butter, salt and pepper together in a tin pan, and when the steak is done to taste, let it lie in this mixture a few minutes, and then serve. Do not salt a steak until it is cooked as salt will toughen it and draw out its juices.
ROUND OF BEEF A LA BARONNE
Boil a fat round of beef for half an hour, take it up and put in a deep dish; cut gashes in the sides of the meat, put pepper and salt into each gash; fill the dish the meat is in with claret wine; set it in to bake, adding as it goes in the stove three blades of mace, a cup of pickled capers, or nasturtiums, three white onions cut small, and a bunch of parsley cut fine. Stew or bake all together until the meat is tender. Toast some slices of bread very brown, lay them in the bottom of a dish, lay in the beef and pour the gravy around it, unless it is preferred in a sauce boat.
ROASTED BEEFSTEAKS
Tenderloin or porterhouse steaks are the best for broiling. Have a clear fire of coals to broil on; rub the gridiron with a little fat of the meat; lay on the steak without salting, let it broil gently until one side is done, then turn. Catch the blood as you turn it, to make the gravy rich. If the steak is a large firm one, take a quarter of a pound of butter and work into it pepper and salt. When the steak is done lay it on to this seasoned butter, keep it hot until the butter melts, turn the steak in it a few times, put the blood with the gravy, and serve hot, with tomato sauce or catsup.
TO ROAST BEEF IN A STOVE
A fine roasting piece of beef may, if properly managed, be baked in a stove so as to resemble beef roasted before a large, open fire. Prepare the meat as if for roasting, season it well with salt, pepper, and a little onion if liked. Set the meat on muffin rings, or a trivet in a dripping pan, and pour into the pan a pint or so of hot water to baste the meat with. Keep the oven hot and well closed on the meat; when it begins to bake, baste it freely, using a long-handled spoon; it should be basted every fifteen minutes; add hot water to the pan as it wastes, that the gravy may not burn; allow fifteen minutes to each pound of meat unless you wish it very rare. Half an hour before taking it up, dredge flour thickly over it, baste freely and let it brown. Take the meat from the pan, dredge in some flour and seasoning if needed; throw into the gravy a cup of water, let it boil up once, and strain into a sauce boat or gravy tureen.
LEG OF MUTTON BOILED A L’ANGLAISE
Select a fat, fine leg of mutton, put it on the fire in warm water; when it boils skim it, and let it simmer gently for two hours and a half; throw in a tablespoonful of salt. When the mutton is done garnish with turnips mashed in cream, butter, pepper and salt, and send it to table with a sauce boat of caper sauce No. 11.
ROAST LEG OF MUTTON
Select a fine, fat leg, cut holes in it, and lard it with fat bacon; season with parsley, pepper, and salt and put it to bake in a slow oven. Roast it for two hours, and serve with tomato sauce.
MUTTON STUFFED WITH MUSHROOMS
Chop up half a pint of mushrooms, put them in a stew pan with some chopped parsley and onion, and a tablespoonful of grated lean and same of fat ham; season with salt and pepper, add the yolks of four eggs, stir it all together, and introduce it in the leg by taking out the bone or by making incisions in the mutton. Bake very brown, froth it up by dusting flour over it, and serve with a good brown gravy, in which some currant jelly is melted. Sauce No. 28 is very nice for stuffed leg of mutton.
MUTTON HAUNCH
Let it lie in vinegar and water a few hours before it is put to cook. When wanted, rub it all over with pepper and salt, and when going to put it in the oven, cover it with a paste made of flour and water, to keep in the juices while baking; allow fifteen minutes to each pound of mutton. When half done, take off the flour paste, baste the meat well and dredge flour over it. Half an hour before serving, stir into the pan a quarter of a pound of butter, baste the meat freely, dredge flour over it again, and brown. Serve with port wine and jelly in the gravy, or if preferred, use one of the sauces mentioned for roast mutton.
MUTTON THAT WILL TASTE LIKE VENISON
Take a hind quarter of lamb or mutton; rub it well all over with brown sugar, half a pint of wine, and same of vinegar. Let it stay in this pickle for a day or two, if the weather is cold. When it is wanted, wash it, dry it, and roast it, or it may be cut into steaks, or made into a pie like venison. Sugar is a great preservative, and gives a finer flavor than salt, which hardens delicate meats. Salt drains out the juices of mutton or lamb.