vintage_recipes | (no subject)

As of late I have been obsessing over cookbooks, vintage and new, in order to come up with culinary masterpieces. In my search I have found myself leaning toward the older cookbooks; it is here that I find the most simple, yet extraordinary recipes. I recently purchased the Ladies Aid Cookbook, I have found it most useful for a recently graduated college student living on a tight budget. Unfortunately I do not have the book with me; it has really good tips on how to be a good cook on a budget...along with the gossip of women's benevolent societies. I have made a trip to the local library where there is a plethora of cookbooks old and new. Here I have fed my history major/ food loving self with one: The Seven Centuries Cookbook: From Richard II to Elizabeth II. It has a lot of interesting recipes--most in the original text and in modern translation.

After a night of no sleep my favorite from the 18th century became:

Mutton like Venison

Original
To dress a haunch of mutton, venison fashion, take a fat hind quarter of mutton, and cut the leg like a haunch. Lay it in a pan, with the backside of it down, and pour a bottle of red wine over it, in which let it lie twenty-four hours. Spit it and roast it at a good quick fire, and keep basting it all the time with the same liquor and butter. It will require an hour and a half roasting; when it comes done, send it up with a little good gravy in one boat, and sweet sauce in another. (John Farley, 1783)

Translation
A 6-lb leg of Mutton or Lamb
Marinade
2 oz (4 TBS) Butter

Sauce
1/2 Lb (1/2 C) Redcurrant jelly
1/2 Pt (1 C) Red Wine
1/2 Pt (1 C) Vinegar
1/2 Lb (1 C) Sugar

Pour the marinade over th lamb and leave for 24 hours.

Remove the lamb from the marinade and brown it in butter. Put it on a rack in a roasting pan. Bring the marinade to the boil with a good piece of butter and use this to bast the mutton frequently. Cook on a spit or roast at 350 degrees (Mark 4) for 20-25 minutes per lb.

Meanwhile make the sauce. Warm the currant jelly. Add the wine and vinegar and half the quantity of sugar. Simmer for 5-6 minutes, add the remaining sugar and cool to a light syrup.

When the joint is tender, remove it and carve it in a concave dish, or on a board with a gravy well. Keep warm. Poor the collected juices back in the pan; degrease. Set the pan on top of the stove over strong heat, add a little boiling water and stir to melt the glaze and make the gravy. Strain in a smaller pan, stir in a lump of butter and pour the gravy into a hot sauce-boat. Serve the sweet sauce in a separate sauce-boat.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

wow, that sounds like 2 great cookbooks---the ladies aid and richard ii to elizabeth ii...

Now that's budget, do you have any idea what six pouds of lamb costs?

Quite a bit of money. I didn't acutally make the recipe. I was reading very late at night--probably 3am. It just sounded like one horrible sexual innuendo.

It must have been late at night and six pounds is one hell of a lot of mutton.

I have made a trip to the local library where there is a plethora of cookbooks old and new.

I've never even thought about going to the library to look for recipes. I must be getting old enough to be forgetful, because I'm certainly old enough to know better.

Or maybe I've just eaten one too many gelatin recipes. :D