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Lamb Pudding
Line a shallow, thick-rimmed basin with pastry about half an inch in thickness, and leave it half an inch over the edge. Take the large bones out of two pounds of a breast of lamb, cut the meat into convenient-sized pieces; season these lightly with pepper and salt, place them in layers in the pudding, and strew a table-spoonful of loose veal stuffing over each layer. Put about a gill of water or mutton broth over the whole, lay a pastry cover on the top, moisten the edge, and draw it over carefully. Dip a pudding-cloth into boiling water, dredge a little flour over, tie the basin rather loosely in it, plunge it into boiling water, and boil from two to three hours. Let it stand two or three minutes before being turned out. Place it on a hot dish, pour half a pint of parsley sauce over it, and serve at once. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A boiled suet-crust pudding of the ordinary Victorian sort, built in a pudding basin and steamed in a floured cloth. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the terms and quantities need translating.
- The pastry is suet crustThe pastry is almost certainly suet crust — the recipe says only "pastry", but in a boiled pudding that means suet crust rather than shortcrust, which turns greasy and collapses in boiling water. Something on the order of 12 oz flour to 6 oz shredded suet with enough cold water to make a firm dough, rolled a good half-inch thick as directed.
- Basin size and liningThe original asks for a shallow, thick-rimmed basin and gives no capacity; two pounds of boned breast will want something around 1.5 litres (2.5 pints). The half-inch overhang matters: it is what you moisten and pinch to the lid so the seal holds through the boiling.
- A gillA gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, five fluid ounces, about 150 ml. It looks like too little liquid, and it is meant to be — the meat and crust give up plenty more as they cook.
- Loose veal stuffingA plain breadcrumb forcemeat rather than a commercial mix: breadcrumbs, shredded suet, chopped parsley, lemon zest, a little thyme and grated nutmeg. Victorian versions vary and many are bound with egg; "loose" here presumably means left crumbly and unbound rather than made up into balls.
- Breast of lambAn inexpensive, fatty, well-boned cut that is no longer standard at supermarket counters but a butcher will supply it. Trim the heaviest fat before layering, or the pudding will swim; boned lamb shoulder is the nearest substitute and needs no less time.
- Covering and boilingA scalded, floured cloth tied loosely still works, and the original immerses the basin in boiling water outright. Pleated parchment and foil under string is easier and less prone to leaking, but with that covering you are steaming: keep the water at a steady simmer at least halfway up the basin and top up only with boiling water, or the crust stops cooking.
- Two to three hours is not paddingBreast of lamb is collagen-heavy and needs the full time to become tender; the crust also depends on long, wet heat to cook through. Three hours for a full 2 lb basin is the safer call.
- Parsley sauceHalf a pint (about 300 ml) of white sauce — butter, flour, milk or some of the lamb broth — with plenty of chopped parsley stirred in off the heat so it stays green.
- YieldThe original claims four or five servings, which is honest for a rich pudding served with a plain green vegetable and potatoes.
Boiled meat puddings in a basin are among the most characteristically English things in the Victorian repertoire: a cheap, bony cut sealed inside suet crust and left over the fire for two to three hours, producing its own gravy and needing no oven. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, compiled in the 1870s for middle-class households running on a fixed weekly allowance, prices this one at two shillings for four or five people and lists it beside other near-identical constructions — beefsteak and kidney, mutton, rabbit, pigeon — all working from the same principle. Breast of lamb was a butcher's cut of the sort a cook bought precisely because it was awkward: fatty, full of rib bones, and unsaleable as a roast, but transformed by long moist cooking. The layer of loose veal forcemeat between the meat serves as seasoning, and soaks up the fat that renders out of the lamb.