(b) Stew the trotters for about 3 hours. Take out the bones, so as not to injure the skin, and fill up the places from which the bones have been removed with forcemeat. Put them into a stewpan with sufficient of the water in which they were boiled to cover them, and add a spoonful of ketchup or Harvey’s sauce, and a little pepper and salt. Allow them to stew gently for ½ hour, take them out, strain the gravy, and boil it down to a glaze. With this glaze the trotters. Serve with croutons of fried bread round the dish.
Shoulder of Mutton.—(a) Rub it over with salt and pepper, fill the inside with a savoury forcemeat of herbs, with plenty of parsley and no eggs; roll it up and skewer it into a neat oval form, or bind it with a tape; lay it in a stewpan with 2 onions, 2 carrots, some herbs, a bay leaf, pepper, salt and a little broth or water; stew it gently over a slow fire or in the oven, basting it often. When nearly done, take off the cover, and let the meat brown in the oven. Before serving, take up the meat carefully, remove the binding, and place it on a dish to keep warm while you strain the gravy; take all the fat off, and boil it down to a strong glazing. Pour this over the meat. Tomato or sorrel sauce may be put round the dish, or cucumber sauce served with it.
(b) First take out the blade bone. Have a pointed knife, a French boning knife is best; make an incision all round the thin end of the bone, keep the knife close to it, and mark all round the bone first one way and then the other, being careful not to go through the flesh or skin. When you get to the joint, take hold of the bone with a cloth and twist it round, and it will come out. The sinews may want cutting here and there. It is much more difficult to take the bone out entire, but it can be done; yet it is seldom needful to take out more than the bladebone. Now make a forcemeat with the following ingredients: 3 oz. breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley, 1 teaspoonful chopped onion, 1 teaspoonful lemon thyme (green, if possible), a slice or two of lean ham chopped fine, 2 oz. butter, 2 yolks of eggs, a little grated nutmeg, a little salt and pepper; make this into forcemeat or stuffing. Use this forcemeat to fill the place of the bone; fasten the end with 2 small skewers. Now put the mutton before a sharp fire or in a brisk oven to brown without cooking through. When done, take from the fire, lay the joint in a shallow pot that will take it, pour off the fat from the dripping-pan, and put into it a little hot water; stir the gravy, and put it in with the joint, and a little water if necessary; the stock should reach half-way up the joint. Add an onion, a blade of mace, a carrot, and a little lemon rind pared thin. Let it stew about two hours, basting it now and then. When the joint has stewed about an hour, turn it over on the other side, and, when done, take it up on the dish in which it is to be served; take a little of the stock in which the mutton has been cooked, and thicken it with a little butter rolled in flour, adding 1 tablespoonful mushroom ketchup, a little lemon juice, pepper, and salt; pour this over the mutton, and serve. The stock would make a very good soup the next day, with the addition of a little sago or vermicelli. (E. A. Robbins.)
(c) Boned.—Take a shoulder of mutton not too fat, remove the bone as far as the first joint from the knuckle, sprinkle the incision with pepper and salt. Make a stuffing the same as for veal, with ½ lb. breadcrumbs, 4 oz. beef suet chopped fine, a little chopped parsley and thyme, a little onion minced, salt and pepper, also a little grated nutmeg, and one egg; place the stuffing into the above incision, fold over the meat into its former place, and tie it up tightly with string. Shoulder of mutton done in this way may be roasted, but should properly be braised—that is, first fried of a golden colour in oil or clarified butter, and then put into a stewpan with 1½ pint stock, and any trimmings of vegetables at hand; 4 or 5 cloves, 6 peppercorns, salt, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Leave it to boil gently for 2 hours, strain off the stock, remove the fat, let it reduce on the fire until it becomes like glaze poured over the mutton, and serve. Another very nice stuffing can be made by putting butter instead of suet; a little shallot and garlic may also be used. Another way of doing a shoulder of mutton when boned and stuffed as above is to tie it tightly in a cloth before putting it to braise, care being taken to arrange the shank bone and first joint so as to appear like a duck’s head, the shank bone making the beak. This is more appropriate for a cold dish, as it can be very prettily ornamented with white of eggs and beetroot, aspic and parsley. The shoulder should be glazed before being ornamented. (Jane Burtenshaw.)
(d) Cavalier’s Broil.—Half roast, or stew, or parboil a moderate-sized shoulder of mutton, lift it into a hot dish, score it on both sides down to the bone, season it well with fine salt and cayenne or pepper, and finish cooking it upon the gridiron over a brisk fire. Skim the fat from any gravy that may have flowed from it, and keep the dish which contains it quite hot to receive the joint again. Warm a cupful of pickled mushrooms, let a part of them be minced, and strew them over the broil; when it is ready to be served arrange the remainder round it, and send it to table instantly.
Squab Pie.—(a) Season mutton chops (those from the neck are best) pretty highly with pepper and salt, and place them in dish in layers, with plenty of sliced apples sweetened, and chopped onions; cover with a good suet crust and bake. When done pour out all the gravy at the side, take off the fat, and add a spoonful of mushroom ketchup, then return it to the pie.
(b) The quantities depend on the size of the pie. The following are the ingredients: Take the best end of the neck of mutton, cut it into chops, trim the fat; pare, core, and slice as for a tart 6 or 8 apples; chop up a small onion; put a layer of apples and a little onion at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of chops, next a layer of apples and onions, and so on till the dish is full. Scatter among the apples ½ teacupful moist sugar, and shake a very little pepper and salt over the meat. Put on a crust and bake as an ordinary meat pie. It may be eaten with either sugar or salt.
(c) Take 1½ lb. scrag of mutton, cut it up into convenient pieces, and put it into a stewpan with ½ pint water, 2 large pinches of salt and 1 of pepper, and 2 large onions sliced. Let it simmer for 2 hours or until perfectly tender, then set the gravy to cool. Draw all the bones out of the meat, and arrange it neatly in a pie dish, place on the top the onions cooked with it, sprinkle lightly with pepper and salt, and spread over a thin layer of nicely sweetened apple sauce or marmalade, and having removed the fat from the gravy pour it over the whole. Make a crust as follows: use suet finely shred, not chopped, in the proportion of 3 oz. to 5 oz. flour, and water in that of ½ pint to 1 lb. flour. Having mixed these ingredients with a pinch of salt into a smooth paste, roll it out and beat it until the suet and flour are thoroughly incorporated. Then roll it out in the usual manner and put it on the pie. This crust is very good eaten hot, and is wholesome and digestible. If a richer crust is desired, 1 oz. butter or lard may be added to the given proportions, which are about sufficient to make a crust for 1½ lb. mutton. If pie-crust is objected to, a layer of well mashed potatoes may be substituted, or slices of bread fried a light brown and laid on as a cover are very good. The whole of the contents of the pie having been thoroughly cooked it will be ready so soon as the crust, of whatever kind, is nicely baked.
Pork, &c. Bacon. With cabbage.—Take equal quantities of onion and bacon (fat and lean), chopped finely; fry the onion in butter, and before it takes colour add the bacon; when this is cooked, add some cabbage, parboiled and shredded; then put in pepper to taste, and toss the whole on the fire till quite done. Serve as a garnish, more particularly to goose or duck.