Tasty Tuesday - Braised Leg of Mutton

From Mrs. Beeton's Household Management

 INGREDIENTS: –

1 small leg of mutton

4 carrots

 3 onions

1 faggot of savoury herbs

a bunch of parsley

seasoning to taste of pepper and salt

a few slices of bacon

a few veal trimmings

1/2 pint of gravy or water.

Mode.—Line the bottom of a braising-pan with a few slices of bacon, put in the carrots, onions, herbs, parsley, and seasoning, and over these place the mutton. Cover the whole with a few more slices of bacon and the veal trimmings, pour in the gravy or water, and stew very gently for 4 hours. Strain the gravy, reduce it to a glaze over a sharp fire, glaze the mutton with it, and send it to table, placed on a dish of white haricot beans boiled tender, or garnished with glazed onions.

NOTE:

The French term “bouquet garni” is used to describe a combination of herbs which are bundled together and used to flavor dishes by being placed in cooking pots as they simmer on the stovetop, and then removed before serving. Some refer to this as an “herb posy”, “savoury herb posy, “bouquet fagot”, “bouquet faggot”, “faggot of sweet herbs” “garnished faggot”, “kitchen bouquet”, and more.

Time.—4 hours. Average cost, 5s.

Sufficient for 6 or 7 persons.

Seasonable at any time.

THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.—This order of knighthood was founded by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, in 1429, on the day of his marriage with the Princess Isabella of Portugal. The number of the members was originally fixed at thirty-one, including the sovereign, as the head and chief of the institution. In 1516, Pope Leo X. consented to increase the number to fifty-two, including the head. In 1700 the German emperor Charles VI. and King Philip of Spain both laid claim to the order. The former, however, on leaving Spain, which he could not maintain by force of arms, took with him, to Vienna, the archives of the order, the inauguration of which he solemnized there in 1713, with great magnificence; but Philip V. of Spain declared himself Grand Master, and formally protested, at the congress of Cambrai (1721), against the pretensions of the emperor. The dispute, though subsequently settled by the intercession of France, England, and Holland, was frequently renewed, until the order was tacitly introduced into both countries, and it now passes by the respective names of the Spanish or Austrian “Order of the Golden Fleece,” according to the country where it is issued.