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Liver and Ham, Forcemeat of, for Raised Pies, Etc
Take half a pound of calf's liver, and half a pound of fat bacon. Cut the meat into one-inch squares, and fry them lightly, putting in the bacon first, and when it is half done adding the liver. Season with a small tea-spoonful of her-baceous seasoning and a little salt. When the liver is half cooked, take it and the bacon up, drain them from the fat, mince finely, then pound them in a mortar to a smooth paste, pass this through a coarse sieve, and put the forcemeat aside for use. Probable cost, 9d. per pound.
A basic pâté-style stuffing meant to line or fill a raised pie, not to be eaten as it stands. The whole method turns on deliberate under-cooking, since the forcemeat finishes in the oven inside the pastry.
- The hinge: it is half-cooked on purposeThe liver is taken up while still pink, presumably so it does not dry out during the pie's long bake. That means the finished forcemeat must be cooked through in the pie to at least 160F/71C at the centre. It is not a spreadable pate and should not be tasted raw.
- Herbaceous seasoningA Victorian pre-mixed dried herb blend; the usual constituents were dried herbs such as thyme, marjoram, summer savory and basil, sometimes with pepper and spice, though the exact mixture varied. A scant teaspoonful of a good poultry-seasoning blend is a fair stand-in.
- Fat baconA fat cut such as belly or back fat rather than modern thin-cut rashers; plain salt pork or pancetta is the nearest thing. Victorian bacon could be green or smoked, but heavily smoked bacon will dominate the liver; if it is all you have, blanch it first in simmering water for two minutes.
- Calf's liverAvailable from good butchers, mild and pale. Lamb's liver is the nearest substitute; pig's liver works but is markedly stronger and slightly bitter, so cut it with a little extra fat.
- Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding in under a minute. The sieving step is still worth doing for a raised pie, since it removes the tough connective tissue and the ducts that a processor merely chops rather than breaks down.
- SaltThe bacon carries most of it. Season lightly at this stage and correct once the mixture is cool, remembering it will be enclosed in salted pastry and often jellied stock.
- Yield and keepingSomewhat under a pound of finished forcemeat from the pound of raw meat, once it has been drained of fat -- enough to fill a small raised pie or to line a larger one. Because it is not fully cooked, use it the same day and keep it refrigerated until the pie goes into the oven.
- Probable costNinepence a pound in pre-decimal money, a genuinely cheap filling for the period. Cassell's costed almost every entry this way, which is why the figures now read as a price index rather than a shopping guide.
Forcemeat, from the French farce, is simply seasoned meat pounded to a paste, and by the late nineteenth century it was the structural backbone of the raised pie: it filled the gaps between larger pieces of game or poultry, bound the whole thing, and kept the meat moist through the long slow bake in a hot-water-crust case. The pairing of liver with fat bacon is the same logic that governs pâté and terrine work generally, the fat carrying flavour and preventing the lean liver from going grainy. The mortar and the coarse sieve mark the era: a smooth forcemeat was a measure of a kitchen's diligence before mechanical mincers and processors made the texture easy to achieve.