Handbook of practical cookery

Dry whatever moisture there may be upon the outside of the heart with a dry towel, and place it together with the drippings in an oven-tin, and allow it to bake briskly, twenty minutes for each pound, and twenty minutes longer, basting meantime. While the heart is roasting, the "deaf ears" must be washed, put into a sauce-pan with the pint of cold water, adding also the onion sliced, and the whole allowed to simmer slowly for one hour. "When the heart is roasted, strain the liquor from the " deaf ears," melt in the sauce-pan the butter, stir into it the flour, and add to this the strained liquor, also the catchup, pepper, and salt, and allow all to cook for two minutes, when the paper should be removed from the heart, and placing it upon a hot platter, serve with the sauce poured around. NOTE. — A sheep's heart is delicious done in the same way, the preparation being that the quantity of stuffing must be made according to the size of the heart. GENERAL NOTE.— The above processes have been termed " roasting," but are in reality baking ; roasting proper only being done by reflected heat before an open fire. Meat is more nourishing done upon the spit than in the oven, for the reason that the unwholesome vapours are dissipated when exposed to the air, and preserved when confined to an oven. MEATS.-SECOND DIVISION. BOILED MEATS. Boiled Leg of Mutton.— One leg of mutton, two ounces of butter, one ounce of flour, one and one half gill of milk, one salt-spoonful of salt, one salt-spoonful of pepper, two heaped table-spoonfuls of capers. Put over the fire a large sauce-pan of water, and bring it to the boiling-point. If the mutton be newly killed, beat it with a rolling-pin to soften the fibre, but it is better to have hung it a week if the weather permits. Plunge the meat into the boiling water and allow it to boil up once, then draw the sauce-pan aside from the blaze of the fire, cover it closely, and allow it to simmer slowly ; how slowly may be BOILED CORNED BEEF. 47 determined by keeping the water bubbling easily at one side until it is done, which will be according to the weight of the leg, — allowing fifteen minutes for each pound, and fifteen minutes longer. Fifteen minutes before the mutton will be done, prepare the sauce by melting in a sauce-pan the butter, and stirring into this the dry flour. When the flour and butter are thoroughly mixed, add one gill and a half of the liquor that the mutton is boiling in, also the milk, pepper, and salt, cook all two minutes to swell the grains of the flour. Then take the mutton up and place it on a large hot platter, pour over it the sauce, adding just before doing this the capers, in order that their colour may not be lost by standing in the hot liquid. NOTE. — The plunging of the mutton first into boiling water is for the purpose of hardening the albumen and confining the juices of the meat ; it is then allowed to cook slowly, that the fibre may not toughen, which rapid boiling would inevitably bring about. Boiled Corned Beef.— Six pounds of corned beef, twelve ounces of flour, five ounces of beef-suet, one half tea-spoonful of baking-powder, one salt-spoonful of salt, one dozen small carrots, one half pint of cold water.