Mutton should be roasted with a quick brisk fire. Every part should be trimmed off that cannot be eaten. Wash the meat well. The skin should be taken off and skewered on again before the meat is put on the spit; this will make it more juicy. Otherwise tie paper over the fat, having soaked the twine in water to prevent the string from burning. Put a little salt and water into the dripping-pan, to baste the meat at first, then use its own gravy for that purpose. A quarter of an hour before you think it will be done, take off the skin or paper, dredge the meat very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. Skim the gravy and send it to table in a boat. A leg of mutton will require from two hours roasting to two hours and a half in proportion to its size. A chine or saddle, from two hours and a half, to three hours. A shoulder, from an hour and a half, to two hours. A loin, from an hour and three quarters, to two hours. A haunch (that is a leg with, part of the loin) cannot be well roasted in less than four hours. Always have some currant jelly on the table to eat with roast mutton. It should also be accompanied by mashed turnips. Slices cut from a cold leg of mutton that has been under-done, are very nice broiled or warmed on a gridiron, and sent to the breakfast table covered with currant jelly. Pickles are always eaten with mutton. In preparing a leg of mutton for roasting, you may make deep incisions in it, and stuff them with chopped oysters, or with a force-meat made in the usual manner; or with chestnuts parboiled and peeled. The gravy will be improved by stirring into it a glass of port wine.
Ducks, to be good, must be cooked rare: for this reason it is best not to stuff. If, however, you do stuff them, use the goose dressing, and have it very hot. The better way is to cut an onion in two, and put into the body of the bird; then truss, and dredge with salt, pepper and flour, and roast, if before the fire, forty minutes, and if in the oven, thirty minutes. The fire must be very hot if the duck be roasted in the kitchen, and if in the oven, this must be a quick one. Serve with currant jelly and a sauce made the same as for turkey.
Pick and draw them very carefully, salt and dredge with flour, and roast with a quick fire ten or fifteen minutes. Serve on toast with butter and pepper. You can put in each one an oyster dipped in butter and then in bread crumbs before roasting. They are also very nice broiled.
First make a stuffing of a pound of veal and a quarter of a pound of pork, simmered two hours in water to cover; four crackers, rolled fine; a table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful of summer savory, a large table-spoonful of butter and one and a quarter cupfuls of the broth in which the veal and pork were cooked. Chop the meat fine, add the other ingredients, and put on the fire to heat. Cut off the rabbit's head, open the vent, and draw. Wash clean, and season with salt and pepper. Stuff while the dressing is hot, and sew up the opening. Put the rabbit on its knees, and skewer in that position. Rub thickly with butter, dredge with flour, and put in the baking pan, the bottom of which should be covered with hot water. Bake half an hour in a quick oven, basting frequently. Serve with a border of mashed potatoes, and pour the gravy over the rabbit.
