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Bones, Devilled
Make a mixture of mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and a little mushroom ketchup; lay a coating of butter over the bones, then the mixture, and rub it well in, and broil rather brown over a clear fire.
A supper dish built on leftovers: the ribs, wings and drumsticks from a roast, with enough meat still clinging to them to be worth gnawing. The original assumes you know what a devil is, so here are the working details.
- What "bones" meansRib bones from a roast of beef, the carcass joints of a turkey or chicken, lamb cutlet bones, or a pork chop bone — anything with a little cooked meat still attached. Score the meat down to the bone in two or three places so the paste reaches inside.
- A workable proportionThe original gives none. For the bones off one chicken, start with 2 tbsp English mustard (made, not powder), 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cayenne and 2 tsp mushroom ketchup, worked to a thick paste that will cling.
- Cayenne restraintVictorian devils were meant to sting, but cayenne varies enormously in heat and the original writer had no way to say how much. Season lightly, broil one bone, taste, and adjust before committing the rest.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom liquor, not a tomato product; still sold by some British makers. Worcestershire sauce or a dark soy with a dash of vinegar gives a comparable savoury depth.
- Butter first, then pasteThe recipe is explicit about the order: butter over the bones, then the mixture rubbed in. The fat presumably helps the coating brown rather than scorch under a fierce fire, and is worth keeping rather than skipping.
- "Broil over a clear fire"A clear fire is one burnt down to glowing coals with no flame or smoke. Under a modern broiler, use high heat with the bones 4–5 inches from the element, turning once — 3–4 minutes a side. The meat is already cooked; you are only crisping and browning it.
- ServingOne or two bones per person as a savoury at the end of a meal, or three or four as a late supper. Serve very hot with plain bread, and provide finger bowls or napkins — this is eaten with the hands.
Devilling — coating something in mustard, cayenne and a sharp sauce and grilling it hard — was a common Victorian use for cold meat, and devilled bones are associated with the club, the hunting breakfast and the late supper after cards. The verb "to devil" in this culinary sense is recorded in English from the late eighteenth century onwards, the heat of the seasoning being the obvious joke; it appears here as a dictionary entry because devilling was a technique applied to many different things, from kidneys to biscuits to turkey legs. Its practical appeal was that a carved roast could go back to the kitchen with a fair amount of meat still on the frame, and hot spice plus a fierce fire made cold leftovers taste deliberate rather than thrifty. The gnawing-with-fingers character of the dish is often said to be why it was associated with male, informal settings.