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MUTTON HACHIS (a la Portugaise)
Cut underdone slices from a cold roast leg, and again divide them into pieces about the size of a florin. Brown slightly in butter a little lean ham, a sliced carrot, and three shallots shredded finely, a bit of garlic, some sprigs of parsley, and a sprig of thyme, two cloves, and a blade of powdered mace. Moisten with two glassfuls of Madeira and a cup of good gravy or stock, and thicken the sauce with roux (a French preparation of butter and flour, similar to the English thickening of kneaded butter with flour); then boil, skim, and strain. Return the sauce to the stewpan, put in the meat, and make it hot, but it should not boil. Walnut or mushroom ketchup, or the liquor from onion pickle, are all allowable with hashed mutton. Time, ten minutes. Probable cost, 6d., exclusive of meat and wine.
A Victorian way of using up the middle of a roast leg of mutton: a spiced Madeira sauce made from scratch, strained, then used only to warm the meat through. The success of the dish depends entirely on that last restraint.
- Never let it boilThe slices are already cooked and only need to be brought thoroughly hot without boiling. Boiling squeezes the juices out of underdone mutton and turns it grey and stringy, which is why the original says ten minutes and "should not boil."
- The size of a florinA florin was the two-shilling coin, roughly 1 1/8 inches across. Cut the slices thin, then into pieces of about that width so the sauce coats them evenly.
- Two glassfuls of MadeiraA Victorian wineglass held about 2 fl oz, so this is roughly 1/2 cup in total, balanced against a cup of stock. If you use a modern 6 oz pour the sauce will be far too winey; a medium-dry Madeira such as Verdelho suits it best.
- Blade of maceMace is the dried aril that sheathes the nutmeg, and a "blade" is one piece of it, worth perhaps an eighth to a quarter teaspoon once ground. Whole blades and cloves are easier to strain out, which the recipe asks you to do anyway.
- Roux, and how muchNo quantity is given. For a cup of stock plus the wine, about 1 tablespoon each of butter and flour cooked to a pale blond gives a sauce that just coats. The recipe glosses roux as the equivalent of the English kneaded butter and flour (beurre manie), which thickens without the cooked flour flavour.
- Strain, then start againThe ham, carrot and aromatics are flavouring only and are discarded with the strainer. Return the clean sauce to the rinsed pan before adding the meat, or fragments of shallot and thyme stalk end up in the dish.
- The ketchupsWalnut and mushroom ketchups are thin, dark, salty-savoury condiments, nothing like tomato ketchup. Either is still sold; a teaspoon of mushroom ketchup or a dash of Worcestershire sauce serves the same purpose, and pickled-onion liquor adds sharpness rather than depth.
- Yield and servingSlices from a leg will feed about four, with a cup or so of finished sauce after boiling and straining. Mashed or boiled potatoes, or a border of fried bread, suit it.
- Reading the cost noteSixpence covers the vegetables, seasonings and stock; the mutton and the Madeira are both explicitly excluded, the mutton because it is left over from a previous meal.
Hachis is simply French for a hash, from hacher, to chop, and Victorian cookery books used the French word to dignify what was otherwise the plainest of leftover dishes. The tag "a la Portugaise" here is most plausibly read as a reference to the Madeira: the fortified wine of the Portuguese island was a fixture of the well-stocked British sideboard through the nineteenth century, and its name attached itself to sauces in the way sherry did to soups. The recipe demonstrates a general lesson rather than a single dish, namely that reheated roast meat should be warmed in a finished sauce rather than cooked a second time. Cold mutton was the standard problem of the Victorian larder, the leg being too large for one meal, and hash, mince and rechauffe recipes abound in books of this period.