This is a very plain, but very good dish, if made of nice fresh meat and good potatos, and well cooked.
LAMB.—
The vein in the neck of the fore-quarter should be blueish, and firm—otherwise do not buy it. If greenish or yellowish, it is tainted, and fit only for manure. Never buy any thing that has been kept too long. The worst may, by some process, be a little disguised, but nothing can render wholesome any article of food in which decomposition has commenced, even in the slightest degree. The fat should be quite white. If there is but little meat on the shoulder it has not been a good lamb. In America, where food is abundant, there is no occasion to eat any thing, that has the flavor in the least changed by keeping.
A fore-quarter of lamb comprises the shoulder, the neck, and the breast together. The hind-quarter is the loin and leg. Lamb comes in season in the beginning of April, if the spring is not unusually backward.
Jersey lamb is sometimes garlicky early in the season. Avoid buying it; you can easily tell it by the garlicky smell. It can only be rendered eatable by stewing, or frying it with plenty of onions. To plain roast or boil garlicky meat is in vain. Beef, also, is sometimes garlicky.
Lamb may be cooked in every way that is proper for mutton.
ROAST LAMB.—
The roasting pieces for lamb are the fore-quarter, and hind-quarter; and the saddle, or both hind-quarters together, not having been cut apart. If the saddle is cooked whole, it should be of a small delicate lamb, nice and fat, and is then a fashionable dish at company dinners. Like all other young meat lamb should always be thoroughly done, not the least redness being left perceptible any where about it. A hind-quarter of eight pounds will require at least two hours—a fore-quarter, rather longer. It should be placed before a clear brisk fire, but not very near at first. Put a little water in the dripping-pan, and baste it with that till it begins to cook, adding a little nice fresh butter. Then place it nearer the fire, and when the gravy begins to fall, baste it with that, and repeat the basting very frequently. When the lamb drops white gravy it is nearly done, and you may prepare for taking it up. Skim the gravy that is in the dripping-pan till all the fat is taken off. Then dredge over it a little flour, and send it to table in a gravy boat, having stirred in one or two table-spoonfuls of currant jelly. Lettuce is always an accompaniment to cold lamb.