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Kid, Hashed
Take about two pounds of the remains of a cold roast kid--if underdone, so much the better. Cut it into neat slices, and put it into a covered dish until wanted. Put a pint of good veal stock into a saucepan, with an ounce and a half of butter, rolled in flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, half a blade of mace, a sprig of parsley, and a shallot. Simmer gently for half an hour. Strain the gravy, add a wine-glassful of port, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, and a lump of sugar. Put in the slices of kid, let them get quite hot without boiling the gravy, and serve immediately. Spinach, cauliflowers, or French beans are excellent as accompaniments to this dish Probable cost, exclusive of the cold kid and wine, 1s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A reheating dish built on a made gravy, not a stew: the meat is already cooked, and everything hinges on keeping it below a simmer.
- The hinge: never let it boilRoast kid is lean, and slices held in boiling gravy will tighten and go stringy within a minute or two. Bring the finished sauce to just below a simmer, slide the meat in off the heat, and give it three or four minutes to warm through.
- KidYoung goat, generally under a year old and much milder than mature goat. Halal and Caribbean butchers are the likeliest source; leftover roast lamb or mutton takes the same treatment, though lamb is fattier and the sauce will need skimming.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml), not the US 16. A wine-glassful in Victorian books is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz (roughly 55-60 ml) of port, though the measure was never standardised. An ounce and a half of butter is about 40 g.
- Butter rolled in flourThis is beurre mani he fingers, roughly equal weights butter and flour, worked to a paste. Dropped into the stock at the start it thickens over the half-hour simmer; whisk once or twice so it does not sit in a lump.
- Blade of maceA blade is one piece of the dried aril from a nutmeg, not ground mace. Half a blade is fine; if only ground mace is at hand use a scant pinch, since it disperses far more strongly and cannot be strained out.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, nothing like tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British specialist grocers; a teaspoon of soy sauce with a few drops of Worcestershire is the nearest common substitute.
- SaltA full teaspoon into a pint of stock assumes a homemade, unsalted veal stock. With shop-bought stock, salt only after straining and after the port and ketchup have gone in.
- Yield and servingFour to five as written, which works out at roughly six ounces of cooked meat a head; serve with the spinach, cauliflower or beans suggested and something to catch the gravy.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English réchauffé: the reheated remains of a joint dressed up with a made gravy so that nothing left the house as waste. Hashes like this one are a mainstay of the Victorian second-day table, and the pattern recurs often: a stock base thickened with beurre manié, flavoured with mace, shallot and parsley, sharpened with port, a store sauce such as mushroom ketchup, lemon and a lump of sugar to balance. Kid appears in the dictionary alongside the other cold-meat hashes -- hashed venison, hashed hare, hashed mutton -- as variations on one method. The costing in shillings, given exclusive of the meat and the wine, points to a book written for a household keeping accounts.