While the chops are browning, peel and boil a couple of dozen of young button onions in about three pints of water for about fifteen or twenty minutes, set them by, and pour off the liquor they were boiled in into the stew-pan with the chops: if that is not sufficient to cover them, add as much boiling water as will; remove the scum as it rises, and be careful they are not stewed too fast or too much; so take out one of them with a fish-slice, and try it: when they are tender, which will be in about an hour and a half, then pass the gravy through a sieve into a basin, set it in the open air that it may get cold, you may then easily and completely skim off the fat; in the mean time set the meat and vegetables by the fire to keep hot, and pour some boiling water over the button onions to warm them. Have about six ounces of carrots, and eight ounces of turnips, peeled and cut into slices, or shaped into balls about as big as a nutmeg; boil the carrots about half an hour, the turnips about a quarter of an hour, and put them on a sieve to drain, and then put them round the dish, the last thing.
Thicken the gravy by putting an ounce of butter into a stew-pan; when it is melted, stir in as much flour as will stiffen it; pour the gravy to it by degrees, stir together till it boils; strain it through a fine sieve or tamis into a stew-pan, put in the carrots and turnips to get warm, and let it simmer gently while you dish up the meat; lay the chops round a dish; put the vegetables in the middle, and pour the thickened gravy over. Some put in capers, &c. minced gherkins, &c.
Obs.—Rump-steaks, veal-cutlets, and beef-tails, make excellent dishes dressed in the like manner.
Mutton-Chops delicately stewed, and good Mutton Broth,—(No. 490.)
Put the chops into a stew-pan with cold water enough to cover them, and an onion: when it is coming to a boil, skim it, cover the pan close, and set it over a very slow fire till the chops are tender: if they have been kept a proper time, they will take about three quarters of an hour’s very gentle simmering. Send up turnips with them ([No. 130]); they may be boiled with the chops; skim well, and then send all up in a deep dish, with the broth they were stewed in.
N. B. The broth will make an economist one, and the meat another, wholesome and comfortable meal.
Shoulder of Lamb grilled.—(No. 491.)
Boil it; score it in checkers about an inch square, rub it over with the yelk of an egg, pepper and salt it, strew it with bread-crumbs and dried parsley, or sweet herbs, or [No. 457], or [No. 459], and Carbonado, i. e. grill, i. e. broil it over a clear fire, or put it in a Dutch oven till it is a nice light brown; send up some gravy with it, or make a sauce for it of flour and water well mixed together with an ounce of fresh butter, a table-spoonful of mushroom or walnut catchup, and the juice of half a lemon. See also grill sauce ([No. 355]).
N.B. Breasts of lamb are often done in the same way, and with mushroom or mutton sauce ([No. 307]).