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Ham and Fowl, Potted
Take the meat from a cold chicken, and put it into a mortar with half a pound of cooked ham, fat and lean mixed. Pound these to a pulp, and season them with pepper and a very little pounded mace. Put the bone and trimmings of the chicken into a saucepan, with a small bunch of sweet herbs, half a blade of mace, and as much water as will cover them. Boil the meat down to glaze. Mix this and two ounces of clarified butter with the pounded meat. Put it into small jars, and pour clarified butter over the top. Time, about one hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the cold chicken. HAM AND FOWL, POTTED (another way). (See FOWL WITH HAM, POTTED.)
A Victorian potted meat: cooked chicken and ham pounded smooth, bound with a reduced stock glaze and butter, then sealed under more butter. The whole thing hangs on the glaze — reduce the bones and trimmings until the liquid is syrupy and coats a spoon, or the paste will be dry and crumbly.
- PoundingA food processor does in thirty seconds what the mortar does in fifteen minutes. Pulse the ham and chicken together rather than running it continuously, and stop while there is still a little texture; over-processing turns it pasty and gluey.
- The glaze"Boil the meat down to glaze" means reducing that small panful of stock to a couple of tablespoons of sticky, intensely savoury liquid. Start with barely enough water to cover, simmer the bones and trimmings, strain, then reduce hard; the recipe allows about an hour for the whole preparation, so keep it moving. Let the glaze cool a little before mixing in, or it will melt the butter out of suspension.
- Clarified butterTwo ounces is a scant quarter cup, worked into the meat; you will need a further 4-6 tablespoons melted and clarified for the seal. Clarify by melting butter gently and pouring off the clear fat, leaving the milky solids behind — the solids spoil quickly and will ruin the seal.
- MaceA blade of mace is a piece of the dried aril that sheathes a nutmeg; one nutmeg yields several blades. A blade is usually reckoned at somewhere around a quarter to half a teaspoon of ground mace. "A very little pounded mace" in the meat means a pinch. Ground mace loses its perfume fast, so buy small.
- SaltThe recipe seasons only with pepper and mace, on the assumption that the ham carries the salt. Modern hams vary enormously; taste the mixture before potting and correct.
- StorageThe butter seal was the period's refrigeration and should not be treated as such. Refrigerate the jars and eat within three or four days. Once the seal is broken, treat the contents like any cooked meat paste.
- Yield and servingHalf a pound of ham with the meat from a chicken gives well over a pound of potted meat — two or three small jars, enough for eight to ten servings on toast. Let it sit at room temperature for fifteen minutes before spreading; straight from the fridge the butter is too firm.
- Cost"Probable cost, 1s." is one shilling for the ham, butter and seasoning, the cold chicken being assumed a leftover, as the recipe says. Using up the remains of a roast bird was one of the standard uses for potted meats.
Potting was the English answer to French terrines and rillettes: cooked meat pounded fine, packed into an earthenware pot, and sealed under a layer of clarified butter that kept air off the surface. The technique is documented in English cookery from the seventeenth century onward and stayed in constant domestic use through the Victorian period, when a cold joint or the carcass of Sunday's fowl was expected to reappear at breakfast or in sandwiches rather than be thrown out. Cassell's, published for middle-class households running on a budget, carries dozens of such recipes with their "probable cost" attached — the entry assumes the chicken is already paid for and prices only what you must buy. The reduced stock glaze here is the detail that separates a good potted meat from a greasy one: it supplies gelatin, which sets the paste and gives it the sliceable body that butter alone cannot.