Practical West African cookery

The amount of time required to cook meat can only be quite approximate, depending upon the size of the piece and the kind of fire. Twenty minutes to the pound is the average time required. A kitchen chopper and a small kitchen saw are indispensable if you want to have neat joints. Roast Leg of Mutton. (I). A leg of mutton. 1 bit garlic or £ onion stuck 2 tablespoons butter or lard. in the upper part of the leg. 1 tablespoon water. j 1 teaspoon salt. ; 1 teaspoon pepper. 1 . Trim the leg by cutting off any loose pieces of skin and scraping off the flesh and skin that adheres to the lower end of the bone for at least an inch. Lay the leg flat on the table and beat it into shape with the flat side of the chopper. This will also break the fibres and make the meat more tender ; care must be taken not to break the bone. 2. Rub the leg with a little of the butter, melt the remainder in the baking tin, put in the leg and place the tin in a good oven. Baste it from time to time, add one tablespoon of water and a little more butter or lard if the fat dries up and sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a good oven a Nigerian leg of mutton will take less than an hour to cook. Roast Saddle. (I). Cut off the end of the saddle, keeping only the best middle part, t.e., about six good chops. With a knife, trim off the skinny edge of the flap. Divide the chine bone (which keeps the chops together) with a single sharp stroke of the chopper, but divide the central bone only, not the meat. Roll under what is left of the flap and tie the saddle round with a piece of string so as to get a neat rectangular piece. Roast for fifteen or twenty minutes in the oven or it is even better to braise it according to the following recipe. Braised Leg or Saddle of Mutton. (I). 1 leg or saddle of mutton. 1 tablespoon butter or lard. 1 teacup stock, water or a little Lem co. 2 large onions stuck with 2 cloves. £ teaspoon salt. | teaspoon pepper. (Bunch of parsley if available). When mutton is poor, as in Nigeria, it is generally nicer to braise than to roast it, the process is quite simple. 1. Put the butter in the large flat saucepan, when quite hot put in the leg or saddle (if leg the handle joint should be cut off to make it smaller), turn it till it is a nice brown all over, add salt, pepper, the onion cut in quarters and the teacup of stock. Put the cover tight on the saucepan, let it simmer very slowly for one and a half hours if a leg, for half an hour if a saddle. Notes. — Any vegetables, carrots, turnips, yam or sweet potatoes can be added to the meat, put in the carrots and turnips at the same time as the stock, the yam or sweet potatoes when it is half cooked. A Welbank Boilerette comes in very useful for braising beef or mutton. Cold leg or saddle of mutton roasted or braised is good with any sort of salad or mint sauce (see index). Boiled Leg of 1 leg of mutton. 2 large onious stuck with cloves. 3 berkono or a teaspoon pepper. Mutton. (I). 1 teaspoon salt. (1 bunch of parsley or one teaspoon thyme, four carrots and three turnips if available). To be tender, a boiled leg of mutton must be put into boiling water, not in cold.