ROAST VENISON. After a haunch of venison is spitted, take a piece of butter and rub all over the fat, dust on a little flour, and sprinkle a little salt: then take a sheet of writing paper, butter it well, and lay over the fat part; put two sheets over that, and tie the paper on with small twine: keep it well basting, and let there be a good soaking fire. If a large haunch, it will take full three hours to do it. Five minutes before you send it to table take off the paper, dust it over with a little flour, and baste it with butter; let it go up with a good froth; put no gravy in the dish, but send it in one boat; and currant jelly melted, in another; or if you have no currant jelly, boil half a pint of red wine with a quarter of a pound of lump sugar, a stick of cinnamon, and a piece of lemon peel in it, to a syrup. The neck and shoulder are dressed the same way; and as to the time, it depends entirely on the weight, and the goodness of your fire: if you allow a quarter of an hour to each pound, and the fire be tolerably kept up, you cannot well err. A breast of venison is excellent dressed in the following way: flour it, and fry it brown on both sides in fresh butter: keep it hot in a dish, dust flour into the butter it was fried in, till it is thick and brown. Keep it stirring that it may not burn; pour in half a pint of red wine, and a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar: stir it and let it boil to a proper thickness. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon, take off the scum very clean, and pour it over your venison, then send it to table.
ROAST WHEAT-EARS. These birds should be spitted sideways, with a vine leaf between each. Baste them with butter, and cover them with bread crumbs while roasting. Ten or twelve minutes will do them. Serve them up with fried bread crumbs in the dish, and gravy in a tureen.
ROAST WILD DUCK. A wild duck or a widgeon will require twenty or twenty-five minutes roasting, according to the size. A teal, from fifteen to twenty minutes; and other birds of this kind, in proportion to their size, a longer or a shorter time. Serve them up with gravy, and lemons cut in quarters, to be used at pleasure.
ROAST WOODCOCKS. Whether for woodcocks or snipes, put a toast of fine bread under the birds while at the fire; and as they are not to be drawn before they are spitted, let the tail drop on the toast while roasting, and baste them with butter. When done, lay the birds on the toast in a dish, and send it warm to the table. A woodcock takes twenty minutes roasting, and a snipe fifteen.
ROBERT SAUCE. Put an ounce of butter into a pint stewpan, and when melted, add to it half an ounce of onion minced very fine. Turn it with a wooden spoon till it takes a light brown colour, and then stir into it a table-spoonful of flour, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, the like quantity of port wine, half a pint of weak broth, and half a tea-spoonful of pepper and salt mixed together. Give them a boil, then add a tea-spoonful of mustard, the juice of half a lemon, and one or two tea-spoonfuls of vinegar, basil, taragon, or burnet vinegar. This sauce is in high repute, and is adapted for roast pork or roast goose.
ROLLS. Warm an ounce of butter in half a pint of milk, put to it a spoonful or more of small beer yeast, and a little salt. Mix in two pounds of flour, let it rise an hour, and knead it well. Make the paste into seven rolls, and bake them in a quick oven. If a little saffron, boiled in half a tea-cupful of milk, be added, it will be a great improvement.
ROLLED BEEF. Soak the inside of a large sirloin in a glass of port wine and a glass of vinegar mixed, for eight and forty hours: have ready a very fine stuffing, and bind it up tight. Roast it on a hanging spit, baste it with a glass of port wine, the same quantity of vinegar, and a tea-spoonful of pounded allspice. Larding it improves the flavour and appearance: serve it with a rich gravy in the dish, with currant jelly and melted butter in tureens. This article will be found very much to resemble a hare.
ROLLED BREAST OF VEAL. Bone it, take off the thick skin and gristle, and beat the meat with a rolling-pin. Season it with herbs chopped very fine, mixed with salt, pepper, and mace. Roll the meat in some thick slices of fine ham, or in two or three calves' tongues of a fine red, first boiled an hour or two and peeled. Bind the meat up tight in a cloth, and tie it round with tape. Simmer it over the fire for some hours, in a small quantity of water, till it is quite tender. Lay it on the dresser with a board and weight upon it till quite cold. Then take off the tape, and pour over it the liquor, which must be boiled up twice a week, or it will not keep. Pigs' or calves' feet boiled and taken from the bones, may be put in or round the veal. The different colours placed in layers look well when cut. Boiled yolks of eggs, beet root, grated ham, and chopped parsley, may be laid in different parts to encrease the variety, and improve the general appearance.
ROLLED LOIN OF MUTTON. Hang the joint up till tender, and then bone it. Lay on a seasoning of pepper, allspice, mace, nutmeg, and a few cloves, all in fine powder. Next day prepare a stuffing as for hare, beat the meat with a rolling-pin, cover it with the stuffing, roll it up tight and tie it. Half bake it in a slow oven, let it grow cold, take off the fat, and put the gravy into a stewpan. Flour the meat, and put it in likewise. Stew it till almost ready, and add a glass of port, an anchovy, some ketchup, and a little lemon pickle. Serve it in the gravy, and with jelly sauce. A few mushrooms are a great improvement; but if to eat like hare, these must not be added, nor the lemon pickle.
ROLLED NECK OF PORK. Bone it first, then put over the inside a forcemeat of chopped sage, a very few crumbs of bread, salt, pepper, and two or three berries of allspice. Then roll the meat up very tight, place it at a good distance from the fire, and roast it slowly.