Have the butcher bone and roll the shoulder and then when ready to use wipe with a damp cloth and pack with the following mixture:  Chop very fine

  Three onions,
  Four branches of parsley,
  One leek.

Pat with flour and then roast in the oven, allowing thirty minutes to start cooking and twenty minutes to the pound, gross weight.  Baste the meat after it commences to brown with one and one-half cups of boiling water.

The season for spring lamb is from January to July.  The meat is delicate and while less nutritious than mutton is delicious.

Yearling is a splendid choice for lamb.  It is fully as nutritious as mutton, without the excess fat of mutton.  Fat mutton frequently disagrees with persons of delicate digestion and therefore should be discarded from the menu, and the yearling should be substituted.

The choice mutton is raised in Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, while that which comes from Wisconsin is of splendid quality.  Canada also sends us some fine meat.

Prime mutton is large and heavy, the fat firm and white and the flesh a deep red in color and very finely grained.  This meat contains fully as much nutriment as beef.

Soups and broths made from mutton when the fat is removed are very wholesome and are frequently ordered in diets by physicians.  Mutton should be hung for a short period to ripen, but lamb should be used a short time after it is dressed.

The cuts in the side of lamb or mutton usually number six:  (1) The neck, (2) the chuck, which includes some of the ribs as far as the shoulder blade, (3) the shoulder, (4) the flank or breast, (5) the loin and (6) the leg.

In some parts of the country the butcher makes a cut, using the rack end of the loin and chuck for making the rib or French chops.  The term chops is intended to designate meat cut from the rack or loin into chops, preferably one and one-quarter inches thick.  Where the meat is cut with nine ribs on the loin, the shoulder and balance of the chuck is cut into chops for panning or braising.  These chops require longer time for cooking than those cut from the rack or loin.

ACCOMPANIMENTS FOR LAMB AND MUTTON

Serve with a roast shoulder or leg of lamb, mint sauce, green grape jelly, peas or asparagus and baked potatoes.  With mutton or lamb chops serve green grape jelly, mint or currant jelly.

Mutton may be boiled and served with caper or soubis (onions) sauces, currant jelly sauce, boiled or mashed potatoes, peas, string beans, asparagus, stuffed tomatoes and cole slaw.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LAMB AND MUTTON

Look first at the joint above the hoof.  In lamb this joint is serrated or tooth-shaped when broken, while in the yearling and mutton it is the smooth oval ball-and-socket joint.  In lamb the bones are pinkish in color; in mutton the bones are a blue-white color.  The pinkish colored skin should be removed from lamb and yearling before cooking.  This skin contains the woolly flavor.