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Faggots, Baked
Make a mincemeat of calf's liver, or, if more convenient, pig's liver and fresh fat pork, by chopping very finely one pound and a half of liver with half a pound of fresh fat pork. Season the mince with onion, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper. Steam it over boiling water, and throw off all fat. When cold, add a large cupful of bread-crumbs, and three well-beaten eggs; mix all together thoroughly, flavour with nutmeg, and make up into round balls, which may be baked in a buttered dish with a small quantity of good gravy, or, as is often done, wrapped separately in a piece of pig's caul. Either way they should be of a pale brown, and cooked very slowly. Time: to steam mincemeat, half an hour; to bake, until done a pale brown.
A plain British faggot: minced liver and fat pork bound with crumbs and egg, then baked. The recipe assumes a butcher who will sell you caul fat and a cook who knows how much sage to use, so both need filling in.
- "Mincemeat" here means minced meatNo fruit, no suet, no brandy. The word is used in its older, literal sense of finely chopped meat.
- Chop, do not puréeA food processor will turn liver to slurry in seconds and the faggots will bake to a dense paste. Pulse in short bursts, or use the coarse plate of a grinder, so the texture stays granular.
- Seasoning quantitiesThe original gives none. For 1½ lb liver and ½ lb fat pork, a reasonable starting point is one large onion, a tablespoon of chopped sage, a teaspoon of thyme, two teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of pepper and a good grating of nutmeg. Fry and taste a teaspoon of the mix before shaping.
- Fresh fat porkUnsalted pork back fat or fatty belly, not bacon or salt pork. The salt content of cured pork would wreck the seasoning balance. Ask a butcher for back fat; ground pork shoulder is a weaker substitute because it carries less fat.
- Why steam first, and why throw off the fatPre-cooking sets the liver's proteins and renders out fat that would otherwise pool in the dish and leave the faggots greasy and loose. Do not skip it — the crumbs and egg are added to cold, already-cooked mince, so the mixture will hold its shape.
- "Cooked very slowly"The book gives no oven temperature; a low oven, in the region of 300-325F, suits the instruction. The mince has already been steamed for half an hour, so the bake is mainly to set the egg and colour the outsides; higher heat splits and dries them. Reckon 35-45 minutes for balls the size of a small apple, and take them out at 160F internal.
- Pig's caulThe lacy fat membrane from around the stomach, still sold by traditional butchers as caul fat, usually frozen. Soak it in warm salted water to unfold it, cut into 5-inch squares, and wrap one round each ball. It bastes them and then largely melts away.
- Gravy and yieldA cup of good beef or pork stock in the dish is enough; it should come a third of the way up, not cover them. The quantity makes about 12 faggots — four to six servings, traditionally with mashed potato and peas.
Faggots belong to the frugal end of British pork cookery, where offal, fat and stale bread were turned into something that ate like a meatball: they are close cousins of the French *caillette* and *crépinette*, both likewise wrapped in caul. The name has nothing to do with food; it is the same word used for a bundle of sticks, and is generally taken to describe the parcel-like look of a ball tied up in its membrane. Faggots are strongly associated with the Midlands, the Black Country and South Wales, where they were sold hot from butchers' shops with mushy peas well into the twentieth century, and where commercial versions are still made. The instruction to steam the mince and pour off the fat before binding is the mark of a careful late-Victorian kitchen.