Mutton

If mutton is good it is of a fine grain; the lean is of a bright red color, and the fat firm and white. Unless there is plenty of fat the lean will not be good; and so it is with all meat. If the lean is of a very dark red, and coarse and hard, and the fat yellowish and spongy, the mutton is old, tough, and strong. Therefore, do not buy it. If there is any dark or blackish tint about the meat, it is tainted, and of course unwholesome. If kept till it acquires what the English call venison taste, Americans will very properly refuse to eat it. We give no directions for disguising spoilt meat. It should be thrown away. Nothing is fit to eat in which decomposition is commencing.

Boiled Loin Of Mutton

A good loin of mutton is always very fat, so that in cooking it is well to remove or pare off a portion of the outside fat. Unlike most other meats, mutton is the better for being boiled in soup. Put it into a large pot; allow to every pound a quart of water. Boil it slowly and skim it well, adding the vegetables when the scum has done rising. The vegetables should be sliced turnips, potatos, and grated carrots. Have ready plenty of suet dumplings, in the proportion of half a pound of finely minced suet to a pound and a quarter of flour. Rub the suet into the pan of flour, and use as little water as possible in mixing the dough. Make it into thick dumplings, rather larger round than a dollar. Boil them in a pot by themselves, till thoroughly done. Serve up the meat with the dumplings round it. Or put the dumplings in a dish by themselves, and surround the meat with whole turnips. This is an excellent plain dish for a private family. Serve up pickles with it.

Sauce For Boiled Mutton

This particularly applies to mutton that has been boiled in soup, and which is so very generally liked, that it is served up on tables where soup-meat of beef and veal is considered inadmissible. To make a suitable sauce to eat with it - take two or three large boiled onions; slice them and put them into a sauce-pan, with a piece of fresh butter slightly rolled in flour, a table-spoonful of made mustard. French mustard will be best; or, for want of that, two table-spoonfuls of strong tarragon vinegar, and a half-salt-spoon of cayenne, and some pickled cucumbers chopped, but not minced. Green nastur-tion seeds will be still better than cucumbers. Put these ingredients into a small sauce-pan, adding to them a little of the mutton soup. Set this sauce over the fire, and when it simmers well, take it off, put into a sauce-boat, and keep it hot till the mutton goes to table.

To keep nasturtions - take the full-grown green seeds, and put them into a large bottle of the best cider vinegar, corking them closely. They require nothing more, and are far superior to capers.

Boiled Leg Of Mutton

After nicely trimming a middle-sized leg of mutton, wash, but do not soak it. Put it into a pot that will hold it well, and pour on rather more water than is sufficient to cover it. Set it over a good fire, and skim it as soon as it begins to boil, and continue till no more scum appears; having thrown in a small table-spoonful of salt after the first skimming. After the liquid is clear, put in some turnips, pared, and, if large, divided into four pieces. Afterwards it shold boil slowly, or simmer gently for about two hours or more. Send to table with it caper sauce; or nasturtion, which is still better. Eat it with any sort of green pickles. Pickles and turnips seem indispensable to boiled mutton. Do not mash the turnips, but let them be well drained.

Setting boiled turnips in the sun will give them an unpleasant taste.

Tarragon sauce is excellent with boiled mutton.