ROAST FRESH HAM
Select a small baby pig ham and have the butcher bone and then leave s.p.a.ce for the filling. Wipe with a damp cloth and then prepare and fill with highly seasoned bread crumbs. Tie into shape and then dust with flour and place in a baking dish and put in a hot oven to brown.
Then reduce the heat and baste frequently with hot water, allowing the ham thirty minutes to start and the meat cooking thirty minutes to the pound after that. When ready to serve, lift to a warm platter and garnish with parsley or water-cress and serve with Virginia sauce.
Place one medium-sized apple in with the ham to bake.
BRAISED ROLLED FLANK STEAK
Have the butcher score and trim the steak. Now soak sufficient stale bread in cold water to soften. Press dry and then rub through a fine sieve. Measure and place two cupfuls in the mixing bowl and add
Four tablespoons of shortening, One cup of finely chopped onions, One bunch of potherbs, chopped fine, One level tablespoon of salt, One level teaspoon of pepper.
Mix well and then spread on a steak and roll. Tie securely with a stout string and then pat three-quarters cup of flour into the meat.
Melt four tablespoons of shortening in a deep saucepan and when smoking hot add the prepared meat. Brown the meat, turning frequently, and then, when nicely brown, add one cupful of boiling water and simmer slowly, allowing the meat one-half hour to start cooking and thirty minutes to the pound. Add four large onions and when ready to lift one cup of boiling water for gravy. Usually this gravy requires no thickening.
PLANKED STEAK
Have the butcher cut the steak in two and one-half inch thicknesses from the large end of the sirloin. Remove the flank end and then the tenderloin, also taking out the bones. The butcher will do this for you. Now, when ready to prepare the steak, soak the plank in cold water for one hour. Heat the broiler and then place the plank in the oven. Cook the steak until quite rare in the broiler and then lift to a hot plank. Prepare a border of mashed potatoes and put them in a pastry bag, forced out around the edge of the plank. Garnish and smother with onions and minced green peppers. Place in a hot oven for ten minutes. Use the tenderloin for minute steaks. Hamburg the flank and serve hamburg steaks.
LIVER AND BACON, CREOLE
Have the butcher cut the liver in thin slices. Wipe with a clean damp cloth and then roll in flour and brown in hot fat. Now add
One cup of stewed tomatoes, One and one-half cups of thinly sliced onions, Two green peppers, chopped fine.
Cover closely and cook for five minutes, then add
Two tablespoons of cornstarch, One and one-half teaspoons of salt, One teaspoon of paprika, One-quarter teaspoon of mustard, One-half cup of cold water.
Dissolve the starch and spices well and then bring the mixture to a boil and cook slowly for fifteen minutes. Now place mashed potatoes on a large platter, shaping them flat on top. Lay the slices of liver on and then pour over them the sauce and garnish with nicely brown strips of bacon. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley and serve.
CHOP SUEY
Slice sufficient meat from the cold roast of pork. Now cut in half-inch blocks and place in a pan and add
One cup of celery, cut in dice, One green pepper, minced fine, Four onions, minced fine, One cup of finely shredded cabbage, One and one-half cups of thick brown sauce, Two teaspoons of salt, One teaspoon of pepper, One teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce.
Heat slowly to the boiling point and cook until the celery and cabbage are tender and then make a border around a large hot platter of cooked noodles and lift on the chop suey. Garnish with finely chopped parsley and serve.
NOTE.--Make the brown sauce from the left-over gravy and bones making a stock.
DELMONICO ROAST BEEF
Have the butcher cut the seventh and eighth rib from a roast, removing the chine bone. Now have him remove the blade and meat between it and the skin, cutting off the top of the ribs. This gives you a heart-shaped piece of very tender beef. It is really the eye of these two ribs. Place the roast in a pan and dust lightly with flour, and then place in a hot oven for thirty minutes to start cooking. Now reduce the heat and cook, allowing twenty minutes to the pound, counting the time from the minute you reduce the heat.
Use the top of the ribs and the piece of meat from the blade for the pot roast or a beef a la mode. Have the butcher remove the blade and roll the flap-like piece around the ribs, fastening it with a skewer or the entire piece may be boned and rolled.
BAKED SLICE OF HAM
Have the butcher cut the ham in one-inch thick slices. Trim and then cut around the edges every two inches apart to prevent curling. Place on a baking dish and pour over the ham
One cup of water, Two tablespoons of syrup.
Bake in slow oven 25 minutes.
ROAST SHOULDER OF LAMB
Have the butcher bone and roll the shoulder and then when ready to use wipe with a damp cloth and pack with the following mixture: Chop very fine
Three onions, Four branches of parsley, One leek.
Pat with flour and then roast in the oven, allowing thirty minutes to start cooking and twenty minutes to the pound, gross weight. Baste the meat after it commences to brown with one and one-half cups of boiling water.
The season for spring lamb is from January to July. The meat is delicate and while less nutritious than mutton is delicious.
Yearling is a splendid choice for lamb. It is fully as nutritious as mutton, without the excess fat of mutton. Fat mutton frequently disagrees with persons of delicate digestion and therefore should be discarded from the menu, and the yearling should be subst.i.tuted.
The choice mutton is raised in Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, while that which comes from Wisconsin is of splendid quality. Canada also sends us some fine meat.
Prime mutton is large and heavy, the fat firm and white and the flesh a deep red in color and very finely grained. This meat contains fully as much nutriment as beef.
Soups and broths made from mutton when the fat is removed are very wholesome and are frequently ordered in diets by physicians. Mutton should be hung for a short period to ripen, but lamb should be used a short time after it is dressed.
The cuts in the side of lamb or mutton usually number six: (1) The neck, (2) the chuck, which includes some of the ribs as far as the shoulder blade, (3) the shoulder, (4) the flank or breast, (5) the loin and (6) the leg.
In some parts of the country the butcher makes a cut, using the rack end of the loin and chuck for making the rib or French chops. The term chops is intended to designate meat cut from the rack or loin into chops, preferably one and one-quarter inches thick. Where the meat is cut with nine ribs on the loin, the shoulder and balance of the chuck is cut into chops for panning or braising. These chops require longer time for cooking than those cut from the rack or loin.
ACCOMPANIMENTS FOR LAMB AND MUTTON
Serve with a roast shoulder or leg of lamb, mint sauce, green grape jelly, peas or asparagus and baked potatoes. With mutton or lamb chops serve green grape jelly, mint or currant jelly.
Mutton may be boiled and served with caper or soubis (onions) sauces, currant jelly sauce, boiled or mashed potatoes, peas, string beans, asparagus, stuffed tomatoes and cole slaw.
HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LAMB AND MUTTON
Look first at the joint above the hoof. In lamb this joint is serrated or tooth-shaped when broken, while in the yearling and mutton it is the smooth oval ball-and-socket joint. In lamb the bones are pinkish in color; in mutton the bones are a blue-white color. The pinkish colored skin should be removed from lamb and yearling before cooking.
This skin contains the woolly flavor.
BONE AND STUFFED SHOULDER OF LAMB