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Italian Pastes
Italy is famous for its various kinds of paste, the best being made from the small Sicilian wheat, which is harder, and contains more albumen than our northern wheats. Macaroni, lasagni, vermicelli, are all of the same paste, as are stars, rings, and other shapes. The Genoese paste is made of the finest and whitest flour, but every city has its paste manufactory. The Neapolitan is of slightly coarser flour, but when fresh is often preferred by cooks, as it is more speedily dressed. The price of macaroni is now much less than formerly, the Neapolitan being only threepence per pound, and Genoese fourpence per pound. In Italy, pastes of all kinds are dressed in fowl or veal stock for the better tables, and in beef or other bouillon for the ordinary ones. Parmesan and Gruyere cheese accompany the dish, but in England, on account of the expense, home products, such as Cheshire and Cheddar, may be substituted.
ITALIAN PIE. Cut thin slices of veal from the fillet, and prepare a careful seasoning of thyme, parsley, a couple of sage-leaves, pepper (white and cayenne), and salt. Cover the bottom of the pie-dish with the meat, strew the seasoning over, and lay thin slices of ham, previously cooked, upon the top. Distribute forcemeat-balls throughout, and fill up the dish with veal, ham, forcemeat-balls, and the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Pour in half a pint of rich white stock before baking, and a large cup of cream when the pie is ready for the table. Cover the dish with a puff paste, put an ornament in the centre, which can be removed to put in the cream, and bake in a quick oven. Two pounds of veal and five ounces of ham will make a good pie. Time, an hour and a half to bake. The above quantities are sufficient for five or six persons.
Two things sit on this page: a short essay on Italian pasta as it reached late-Victorian Britain, and a genuine recipe for Italian Pie, a veal-and-ham pie with no pasta in it at all. The notes below deal mainly with the pie.
- "Quick oven" needs qualifyingIt is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F, right for setting puff pastry but hot enough to scorch it long before ninety minutes are up. Start high for 15-20 minutes to raise the pastry, then drop to about 350F for the remainder, covering the top loosely with foil if it colours too fast.
- Half a pint of stockAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. The "large cup of cream" is not a standard measure; 4-6 fl oz of double or heavy cream, warmed, is the sensible reading.
- The removable ornamentThe book says only that it can be lifted out to pour the cream into the hot pie. Set over a hole in the crust it would also let steam escape during baking; in any case the top wants a vent.
- Forcemeat-ballsVictorian veal forcemeat is minced veal or pork fat with breadcrumbs, suet, lemon zest, parsley and egg to bind, rolled small. Good sausagemeat rolled into 1-inch balls does the same job.
- Veal from the filletThis means the leg, not the tenderloin as the word suggests today. Veal escalopes or thin-cut leg steaks work; boneless pork loin, sliced thin, is one substitute where veal is hard to buy or unwanted.
- DonenessTwo pounds of thinly sliced veal with sausagemeat balls in a hot oven wants to reach 160F at the centre. At ninety minutes it will be well past that, so the risk is dryness rather than undercooking; the stock and the final cream are there precisely to counter it.
- On the pasta notesThe "small Sicilian wheat" is durum, and its high protein is why it holds shape. Dressing pasta in fowl or veal stock rather than water is worth trying with small shapes; it is closer to a pastina in brodo than to a modern sauced dish.
- Cheese substitutionThe suggestion of Cheshire or Cheddar for Parmesan is made on grounds of expense, not preference. Both melt into strings rather than grating dry over hot pasta; Parmesan or Grana Padano is easy enough to come by now.
- YieldThe book gives five or six servings, which is reasonable for two pounds of veal and five ounces of ham.
"Paste" is simply the older English word for pasta, and its use here marks a period when macaroni was still a slightly foreign luxury in British kitchens but no longer an aristocratic one -- Cassell's quotes threepence a pound for Neapolitan and fourpence for Genoese, cheap enough for a middle-class larder, and notes the price had fallen sharply. The distinction the book draws between hard Sicilian wheat and softer northern wheats is sound: durum's higher protein is what allows extruded shapes to hold their form in liquid, and southern Italian factories at Naples, Gragnano and Torre Annunziata built their reputation on it. The Italian Pie tacked on afterwards is Italian mainly in name; layered veal, cooked ham, forcemeat and hard-boiled egg yolks under a raised or puff crust is a thoroughly English formula. The cream poured in through a vent hole at the table is a genuine Victorian device, used across veal, chicken and pigeon pies to restore moisture that long baking had driven off.