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Ham and Veal, to Press
Take equal weights of veal and ham. Remove the bones, rind, etc., and cut the meat into slices a quarter of an inch in thickness. Pour a quarter of a pint of water into a deep pie-dish, then fill it with alternate layers of veal and ham, and season each layer with salt, pepper, and pounded mace. Place a cover on the meat, with a heavy weight upon it, and put it into a moderate oven until it is quite tender. Do not remove the weight until the meat is cold. Both the bottom and the top layer should b composed of veal. A saucer should be put under the pie-dish, to catch any gravy that the weight may force out of it. Time, about three hours to bake six pounds of meat. Sufficient for six or eight persons. Probable cost, 6s.
A cold pressed meat loaf of the Victorian larder: the veal supplies enough natural gelatine to set the whole block as it cools under weight. Everything depends on the pressing, not the baking.
- The hinge: press while hot, unmould when coldThe hinge: keep it under weight until cold — the cover and weight go on before the dish enters the oven and stay there, undisturbed, until the meat is quite cold. The gelatine released by the veal sets as it cools and helps bind the layers; lift the weight early and the block breaks up in slices.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is generally taken as somewhere around 325-350F (165-175C). Three hours at that heat for a six-pound dish is plausible; this is a slow, covered bake rather than a roast.
- A quarter of a pintFive imperial fluid ounces, or a little over half a US cup. It is only there to stop the bottom layer catching before the meat gives up its own juices.
- Pounded maceBlade mace crushed in a mortar. Ground mace from a jar is the direct substitute — about a teaspoon for six pounds of meat, as it is assertive.
- Salt with the ham in mindCured ham, particularly a dry-cured one, will salt the whole loaf as it presses. The recipe seasons every layer, but with a salty ham you may prefer to salt only the veal layers.
- The weight and the coverA plate or board that sits inside the rim of the dish, pressed down with anything from a foil-wrapped brick to tinned goods — several pounds at least. The saucer underneath is worth using: the recipe notes the weight may force gravy out over the sides.
- Cooling safelyGet it cold quickly rather than leaving it out all evening: press it in a cool place for an hour or two, then move dish, weight and all into the refrigerator overnight. Keep it chilled and eat within three or four days.
- YieldThe book gives six to eight persons. Cut in thin cold slices, six pounds of boneless meat might well stretch further than that.
- CostSix shillings is the probable cost of the ingredients in Victorian money, quoted so a cook could budget against a butcher's bill. It carries no useful modern equivalent.
Veal and ham are a standing British pairing: the ham brings salt and colour, the veal blandness and gelatine, which is why the two turn up together in raised pies, galantines and pressed loaves rather than in roasts. Pressing was a technique before it was a dish — a way of turning cooked meat into a firm, sliceable block that would keep for several days in a cold larder and could be cut for breakfast, luncheon or a picnic hamper without further work. The alternating layers, with veal top and bottom, give a loaf that shows pink and white banding when cut across. Chilled pressed meats of this kind faded from home kitchens as reliable refrigeration and cheap cooked meats from the delicatessen counter took over the same job.