Roasted Leg Of Mutton

A great French writer on culinary matters has said that to roast well a cook must be born with a talent for roasting. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that a cook who can roast a joint of meat properly and send up a so-called plain dinner, such as the above menu is capable of acquiring the highest branches of the culinary art. Inexperienced cooks should bear in mind that no rule of time can apply for roasting, unless the joint is subjected in the first place to a considerable degree of heat, which within ten minutes must be lessened and kept moderate and equal for the necessary time. This great heat in the commencement of the process is necessary in order to close the pores and prevent the escape of the juices of the meat, and the slower heat following will gradually reach the bone and render the joint succulent and delicious.

In the case of roasting by an open range, the fire should be so prepared before putting down the joint as to last, with but slight addition of fuel, during the whole time of cooking. Dripping should if possible be made hot, and the joint be basted with it as soon as it goes to the fire. A meat screen is indispensable, and the joint should be basted every ten minutes. The old rule of a quarter of an hour to a pound of meat is a good one, but one hour and three quarters will, if the process is properly carried on, be sufficient to roast a leg of mutton weighing eight pounds to perfection.

In roasting by any kind of closed range the greatest care should be taken to have the ovens clean. If any fat or products of former cookery are suffered to remain, they will impregnate the meat with an odour which is not only most unpleasant but positively unwholesome. A roasting oven if properly ventilated, scrupulously clean, and supplied with a double dripping pan, the under of which must contain water, will cook joints of meat in great perfection, and there cannot be any reasonable objection urged against roasting by this method.

To roast by gas the same general rules as above apply, and it is most important that the cooking should proceed slowly. In roasting by a gas oven constructed on proper principles, as for example, Leoni's, a considerable saving is effected, as the loss by evaporation is much less than by any other method. The meat, moreover, requires no basting or other attention from the time it is placed in the oven until it is done, and the most fastidious eater could not discover any difference between a joint so cooked and one roasted before the fire.

The gravy for roasted meat should be clear, tasty, and brown, and this can always be made from bones and scraps, or better still, from the rich deposit of jelly found beneath the dripping of joints previously roasted. This with the addition of water or the water in which green vegetables have been boiled, with a few drops of colouring, will make gravy sufficiently good for every day fare. The practice of making gravy in the dripping pan is objectionable, not only because gravy so made is apt to be greasy, but because the serving of the joint whilst hot is very often delayed by it.

Yorkshire Pudding

Before the introduction of the closed range, Yorkshire puddings were always cooked in the dripping pan after having been "set" in the oven. A very good batter pudding, suitable for eating with meat can be baked, but it is impossible it can resemble those finished under a joint of meat roasted before the fire, or in Leoni's gas oven, in which the meat is suspended. To make the batter, mix ten ounces of the finest flour in a gill of cold water, add by degrees a pint of new milk, when it is quite smooth and free from lumps add a pinch of salt, the yolks of two eggs, and, when ready to cook the pudding, beat the whites of the eggs to a strong froth and stir them in briskly. Let two tablespoonfuls of good dripping get very hot in a tin baking-dish, into which pour the pudding, and put it into the oven for a quarter of an hour or until the batter is set. Put the dish with the pudding in the dripping-pan under the meat, let it remain for an hour when it should be brown. When you take up the pudding, drain all the fat from it, slide it on to a hot dish, cut it into neat square pieces, and serve.

Browned Potatoes

Peel and prepare the potatoes in the usual way and boil or steam them for a quarter of an hour if of average size, if small somewhat less time. Drain the potatoes, put them in a baking dish with some dripping, bake them in a quick oven basting occasionally for forty minutes, or until they are perfectly brown. They must, when done, be dry and free from fat. If there is no pudding in the dripping pan, the potatoes can be browned under the meat, and indeed are better than when baked. Potatoes for browning should always be parboiled; as, if baked raw, the outer crust is indigestible.

Rice Pudding

This recipe is for a good family pudding: the eggs can, if desired, be omitted.

Boil a quarter of a pound of rice until soft, drain it dry. Boil a pint of milk, pour it whilst boiling on to two eggs well beaten; sweeten with two ounces of raw sugar, and flavour with grated nutmeg or lemon peel. Mix this mustard with the rice, add an ounce of beef suet shred very finely; put the pudding into a tart dish, and bake it in a slow oven for an hour.

If more convenient, the rice may be baked in water instead of being boiled, and the pudding be finished in the same manner in either case.