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Bacon, Minced
Mince some cold bacon very finely with a little onion, put it into a stewpan with one ounce of bread-crumbs, a few grains of cayenne pepper, and just enough gravy to moisten. Beat it up, and serve on rounds of hot buttered toast.
A late-Victorian way of using up the last of a boiled or baked bacon joint, closer to a hot savoury spread than to a stew. It comes together in about ten minutes.
- What the bacon should beThis assumes cold cooked bacon from a boiled or roasted joint — dense, salty and sliceable. Thick-cut streaky rashers, cooked and cooled, are the nearest supermarket equivalent; crisp bacon will not mince into a paste.
- Mince, not chop"Very finely" is the hinge. The mixture wants to be spreadable, so either work it with a knife until almost a paste or give it a few short pulses in a food processor with the onion. Coarse pieces make the toast difficult to eat.
- Raw onionThe onion goes in uncooked and then heats through in the pan. Keep it to a tablespoon or so, finely minced, or it will dominate; a shallot is milder if you want more volume.
- One ounce of bread-crumbsAbout a quarter cup of dry crumbs. They are there to bind and to soften the salt, not to bulk the dish out — if the mixture stiffens too much, add gravy rather than more crumbs.
- "Just enough gravy to moisten"Two to three tablespoons of well-flavoured stock or leftover meat gravy for every cup of minced bacon. Add it in stages; the crumbs keep absorbing liquid as the pan warms.
- Heat and "beat it up"Gentle heat only, stirring and working the mixture against the side of the pan until it is hot through and cohesive, two or three minutes. Boiling it hard drives off the moisture and turns the bacon stringy.
- SeasoningNo salt is called for and none is needed — cured bacon and gravy between them supply plenty. The "few grains" of cayenne means a genuine pinch.
- YieldA cup of minced bacon covers four to six small rounds of toast, enough for a savoury course or a light supper for two.
Dishes like this belong to the Victorian and Edwardian "savoury" — a small hot, salty, often peppery mouthful on toast, served at the end of dinner after the sweet or sent up for breakfast and late suppers. Cassell's, published for middle-class households, is full of such recipes: the point is less invention than thrift, turning the last unattractive scraps of a bacon joint into something that could decently appear at table. The pattern of minced meat, crumbs, cayenne and a spoonful of gravy heaped on buttered toast recurs across the period under many names, and the same formula was applied to ham, tongue, game and cold chicken. Anchovy, mushroom and cheese versions of the savoury outlived the meat ones, which largely disappeared from British menus once the long formal dinner did.