LAMB CHOPS, STEWED.—
Cut a loin of lamb into chops or steaks, removing the bone, or else sawing it very short. Trim off the skin and part of the fat. Season the chops with a little pepper and salt, and fry them in fresh butter till they are of a pale brown color. Then pour off the fat and transfer the steaks to a stew-pan. Add enough boiling water to cover them; and having seasoned them with some powdered nutmeg or some blades of mace, add a pint of shelled green peas that have been already parboiled, or a pint of the green tops of asparagus cut off after boiling, and a fresh lettuce stripped of its outside leaves and stalks and quartered. Finish with a small quarter of a pound of fresh butter cut in pieces and rolled in flour, and laid among the vegetables. Let them all stew together with the meat, for half an hour rather slowly. Serve up all upon one large dish. It will make an excellent plain dinner for a small family, with the addition of a dish or two of new potatos, if they are in season.
You may omit the lettuce, and add more peas and asparagus tops.
LARDED LAMB.—
Cut off the fillet or round from a nice hind-quarter of lamb, and remove the bone from the centre. Make a stuffing or forcemeat of bread-crumbs, fresh butter, sweet marjoram, and sweet basil, minced finely; the yellow rind of a fresh lemon, grated; and a tea-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and mace, powdered. Fill with this stuffing the hole from whence the bone was taken, and secure the flap round the side of the meat, putting plenty of stuffing between. Then proceed to lard it. Cut a number of long thin slips of the fat of ham, bacon, or corned pork. All these slips must be of the same size. Take one at a time between the points of the larding-needle, and draw it through the flat surface of the top, or upper side of the meat, so as to leave one end of the ham in, as you slip the other end out of the needle. Do this nicely, arranging the slips of ham in regular form, and very near together. Put the lamb into an iron oven, or bake-pan, with a small portion of lard or fresh butter under it, and bake it thoroughly. When the meat is about half done, put in a quart or more of nice green peas with sufficient butter to cook them well. Serve up the lamb with the peas round it, on the same dish.
This is a dish for company.
LAMB PIE.—
Remove the fat and bone from two pounds or more of nice lamb steaks, or take some cutlets from the upper end of a leg of lamb, and cut them into pieces about as large as the palm of your hand. Season them with pepper and salt very slightly. Put them into a stew pot with a very little water, and let them stew for half an hour or more. In the mean time, make a nice paste, allowing half a pound of fresh butter to a pound of flour. Mix with a broad knife half the butter with the flour, adding gradually enough of cold water to make a dough. Roll out the dough into a large thin sheet, and spread all over it with the knife the remainder of the butter. Fold it, sprinkle it with a little flour, and then divide it into two sheets, and roll out each of them. That intended for the upper crust to be the thickest. Line with the under crust the bottom and sides of a pie-dish. Put in the stewed lamb with its gravy. Intersperse some blades of mace. Add some potatos, sliced, and some sliced boiled turnips. Cover the meat thick with the green tops of boiled asparagus, and lay among it a few bits of fresh butter. For asparagus tops you may substitute boiled cauliflower seasoned with nutmeg. Put on the paste-lid, closing the edges with crimping them nicely. Cut a cross-slit on the top. Put the pie directly into the oven, and bake it of a light brown. Serve it up hot.