Practical West African cookery

1. Put in your big vegetable boiler or native pot sufficient water to well cover the leg of mutton, add the berkono and salt. When the water is boiling put in the leg, and the whole onion peeled, let it boil well for five minutes ; then set aside and let it simmer for a short hour. 2. Serve the boiled mutton with caper sauce (see index) and boiled rice. The caper sauce can be made with the water the leg has boiled in. If the parsley, carrots and turnips are available, add them after the first boil up and serve as a garnish round the leg. Mutton Curry, (I). 1 breakfast cup of pieces of mutton cut in small squares 1 breakfast cup stock or hot water. 1 dessertspoon curry. 1 large onion. 1$ tablespoons butter or lard. 1 teaspoon salt. 2 tablespoons dried or prune apples, or two tomatoes, or two or three carrots. 1. Put the butter in the three-pint saucepan, when very hot put in the pieces of meat, fry till a little brown, then take them out. Fry the onion and curry powder. (If carrots, tomatoes or apples are available, they must be fried separately in a little extra butter, the carrots minced, the tomatoes sliced and the apples soaked and cooked before frying them). 2. Put the fried meat into the saucepan with the onion and curry (add the vegetables if any) then pour the stock in slowly and let it simmer for two hours. If it gets too dry add a little more stock. Notes. — For cooked meat, proceed in the same way, adding the meat to the fried onion and curry powder ; use half the quantity of stock and let it simmer only twenty minutes. For beef, cooked or uncooked, the process is the same. Irish Stew. (I). 8 or 9 pieces cut from the best part of a neck of mutton. 2 onions. 1 teacup yam or sweet potatoes cut in pieces one inch square. 1 dessertspoon flour. 2 berkono or a pinch of pepper. $ teaspoon salt. (A teacup carrots and turnips cut in pieces one inch square and a bunch of parsley if available). 1. Spread the flour on the cook’s board and turn in it the pieces of mutton which you have previously sprinkled with salt and pepper. 2. Put the pieces in the flat saucepan with enough cold water to cover them. Bring to the boil, when just boiling take off the scum with a spoon, then add the onions (and carrots, turnips and parsley). Move your saucepan a little aside, cover it and let it simmer very gently for an hour. Then add the pieces of yam or sweet potatoes and simmer for another three-quarters of an hour. It must simmer slowly, not boil, and the saucepan must be kept covered. Note. This stew is very good done in the Welbank Boilerette. Cutlets. (II). Cutlets from the best end neck of mutton can be good, even in Nigeria, if they are carefully cut and trimmed. 1. First saw off the chine bone, then the end of the row of bones level and cut off the outer flap ; take a very sharp knife and divide the row of cutlets down to the bone with one clean decided cut between each of them, and lastly, sever them one by one with a single stroke of the chopper. 2. Lay the cutlets flat on the board and give them a few strokes with the flat of your chopper, trim them into shape, remove the gristle and scrape off all the meat at the ends of the bones, exposing an inch-and-a-half of them.