The home cook book

Select the fore or hind quarter, if the lamb is young (which it should be), to roast. Wash in cold water, and dry with a cloth. Lay on a frame in the baking-pan, pepper and salt it, lightly rubbing the salt on. Set in a hot oven. Turn the meat from side to side as it cooks. Baste every ten minutes, and let it cook well done. Lamb should never be at all rare. Allow about twelve minutes to a pound in roasting. Serve with gravy or mint sauce. For gravy, strain the water the meat is cooked and basted with, and thicken with flour mixed with water and added before setting the pan on the stove. Stir constantly until the gravy pours nicely, and strain if at all lumpy. ROAST LAMB WITH KIDNEY Have the bone cut out of leg of a lamb, and fill in the hollow with kidney cooked tender, minced, mixed with breadcrumbs and well seasoned. If you have mushrooms, add a few to the stuffing. Roast in a hot oven and add nasturtium seeds or capers to the gravy. LEG OF MUTTON STUFFED Boil two or three white onions until tender. Chop them in a bowl with breadcrumbs and season with sage, pepper, and salt. Slit the leg of mutton at the sinews, pack in the .stuffing, and roast, basting the leg frequently. MINCED MUTTON ON TOAST Chop fine the yolks of two or three hard-boiled eggs. To them add half a teaspoon of mixed mustard, a pinch of salt, and a dash of cayenne. When well stirred together, mix in a cup of cold cooked mutton well minced, and half a cup of cream. Set over the fire, and when hot spread upon toast of white bread cut in triangles, circles, squares, or fingers. Some cooks add to this dish a tablespoon or two of sherry. But the mince is good without the wine, and we do not encourage the use of such flavorings for simple, everyday cooking. MUTTON AND LAMB 115 IRISH STEW When you buy your mutton for the stew have the butcher cut in between the joints, giving the effect of chops. It is useless for you to buy the loin — a waste of money and not so good a piece because of its fat. It is the scrag or neck piece you want for Irish stew, for a small stew two pounds. Slice three or four onions in a hot iron pot and let them fry in their own juice till they are light brown. Don't burn them. Then add slowly a quart and a half of cold water and lay in the meat. Let the water slowly come to boil, and after it has boiled up and you have skimmed it, set it back upon the stove, where it will merely bubble and simmer — not boil. Let it stay for two hours, adding a teaspoon of salt, and keeping it tightly covered. Peel as many potatoes as you want to use. Slice two in thin slices for dissolving and thickening the gravy. The water will be pretty well boiled out, but don't mind that; you want only enough for a gravy, not enough for a broth. Cut the potatoes in two if they seem too large, and put them all, the sliced and halved, over the mutton. Set the pot forward over a little brisker fire. Be sure to fit the cover tight on, to keep in steam and preserve the flavor. Allow threequarters of an hour for the potatoes to cook, and serve the stew smoking hot upon a hot platter. SCOTCH HOTCHPOTCH