Lamb may also be braised in the usual manner, and is then served with a variety of sauces and garnishes. It must be observed that braising is a method of cooking usually reserved for lamb when large enough to serve in joints. Abroad, lamb when quite young, say about five weeks old, is often roasted or braised whole, and affords a very delicate dish, which is, moreover, also an uncommon one.
Lamb, Roasted Whole.—Skin the animal, and cleanse it precisely as if it were a rabbit, which indeed when skinned it resembles not a little; cut off the feet, and then cover the whole carcase with thin slices of larding bacon (i.e., fat and rather firm unsmoked bacon), and roast it at a clear fire, allowing fully twenty minutes to the pound. Fifteen minutes or so before it is done, remove the bacon and let it brown all over equally, then squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, and send to table with a boat of good espagnole sauce. Lamb cooked thus is often placed on a bed of mushroom, or any other purée, and served with an appropriate sauce; or it can be sent to table on a bed of savoury rice, or boiled macaroni, stirred up with good meat gravy and tomato sauce as for ragu, and sent up with tomato or curry sauce.
Lamb of the same age and size is also braised thus: skin and cleanse it as before, and cut it right across in half, so as to leave the kidneys attached to the hindquarters. Now place both halves in a well buttered stewpan, with a few slices of ham or bacon, a good bouquet garni, two bay leaves, a 3in. stick of cinnamon, a few peppercorns, and pepper and salt to taste. Moisten it with a full pint of mutton broth or stock, bring it to the boil, and then let it simmer very steadily for about two and a half hours, tightly covered down, with fire above and below; or in the oven with top and bottom heat. Dish, strain, and skim the liquor and serve with the gravy poured over and round the meat. Both these processes are applied to young kid as well as to lamb abroad, and, needless to state, that much variety is allowed in the addenda for the braised lamb; red and green peppers, tomatoes, rice, etc., being all utilised.
It is useless to repeat these directions, as lamb is always roasted or braised in the same way, the only difference being a question of time, which practice and commonsense will easily settle. So a few of the methods of garnishing this joint need alone be given.