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Chestnut Forcemeat for Roast Fowl
Roast and peel a dozen large chestnuts; boil them for about twenty minutes in some strong veal gravy, drain, and, when cold, put them into a mortar, with the liver of the fowl, a tea-spoonful of grated ham, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, a tea-spoonful of chopped onions, a small pinch of grated lemon-rind, three grains of cayenne, and two table-spoonfuls of bread-crumbs. Pound these ingredients in a mortar, and moisten them with a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and the yolks of two eggs. This forcemeat is excellent for a large fowl. Time to prepare, about twenty minutes. Probable cost of chestnuts, 2d. or 3d. per pint. This quantity will serve for one large fowl.
A rich, liver-bound chestnut stuffing of the kind Victorian kitchens built around whatever gravy was already on the stove. Most of the work is prep; the pounding is a thirty-second job in a processor.
- Chestnuts first, and properlyScore each nut across the flat side before roasting or the shells will burst. Peel while still hot — both the shell and the inner brown pellicle come away cleanly then and fight you once cool. Twelve large chestnuts is roughly 8 oz peeled.
- The veal gravyThis assumes a stockpot always going. Any strong unsalted veal or chicken stock does the same work; the point is that the chestnuts absorb savour while they soften. Twenty minutes at a bare simmer is right — hard boiling breaks them into mush.
- Three grains of cayenneA grain is an apothecary's weight, about 65 mg, so this is a scant pinch — roughly a tenth of a teaspoon. The half teaspoon of pepper and full teaspoon of salt are the dominant seasoning.
- Butter the size of a walnutStandard Victorian shorthand for about 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons. Have it soft, not melted, so it emulsifies with the yolks rather than pooling.
- Grated hamA teaspoon of dry-cured ham grated on a fine grater — prosciutto, serrano or a hard country ham. Supermarket cooked ham is too wet and too mild to register.
- Mortar or processorPulse rather than run the machine; you want a coarse, textured paste with recognisable chestnut, not a purée. Over-processing the raw liver turns the whole thing pasty and livery.
- Cooking it throughThe raw liver and egg yolks mean the forcemeat must reach 165F/74C. Stuffing packed into a bird's cavity routinely lags behind the meat, so check the centre of the forcemeat with a probe, or bake it separately in a buttered dish at 350F for about 30 minutes.
- YieldEnough for one large fowl, as stated. Do not pack it in tightly — it swells slightly and needs air to heat through.
The book places this among the forcemeats — the family of pounded, bound mixtures (the word derives from the French farce, 'stuffing', the same root as our "farci") that a Victorian kitchen kept in its repertoire for poultry, veal and fish alike. The inclusion of the bird's own liver is characteristic: a fowl arrived from the poulterer whole, giblets attached, and nothing was wasted. The costing note — chestnuts at twopence or threepence a pint — shows them priced by volume rather than weight. The whole recipe assumes two things no longer standard: a mortar heavy enough to pound in, and a pot of strong veal gravy always available to dip into.