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MUTTON PATTIES (another way)
These patties are often made with cooked meat, which is minced, then hashed in good gravy, seasoned with pepper, salt, and a little ketchup. The mince should not boil, but be made hot, and thickened. Patty-pans, lined with puff-paste and filled with the meat, will require a very short time to bake. Cover with the paste, and put them into a quick oven. Time, about fifteen minutes to bake. Probable cost of paste, 1s. per pound.
A leftovers dish dressed up in puff paste, and the instructions assume knowledge the book expects its reader to have. A few clarifications make it workable.
- Quick ovenA "quick oven" is roughly 400-450F. The fifteen minutes given is realistic only at that sort of heat, and only because the meat is already cooked; the baking is essentially to raise and colour the pastry.
- Do not boil the minceThis is the hinge. Cooked mutton reheated at a boil turns dry and grainy. Bring the gravy to a bare shiver, stir the meat through, thicken, and take it off.
- Patty-pansSmall round tins, varying in size and depth; something on the scale of a modern bun or muffin tin cup, in the region of 2-2.5 inches across, will serve. A 12-hole tin stands in well; a very shallow tart tin will hold little filling.
- ThickeningNo quantity is given. A beurre manie of equal butter and flour, about a teaspoon of each per half-cup of gravy, brings it to the consistency needed - it must be thick enough not to run out when the lid is cut.
- KetchupIn this period ketchup usually means mushroom or walnut ketchup, a thin dark savoury condiment closer to Worcestershire sauce than to the tomato product. Use mushroom ketchup, Worcestershire, or a spoonful of dark soy rather than tomato ketchup, which will sweeten the filling.
- Cool the filling firstThe text says to fill, then cover, then bake. Warm filling will melt the butter layers in the puff paste before it hits the oven. Chill the mince before it goes into the cases and chill the assembled patties for fifteen minutes.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities. As a rough guide, about a pound of cooked mutton with a cup of gravy will fill something like a dozen patties. Serve hot, as a first course or a light supper dish.
- Cost noteThe "1s. per pound" for paste is a Victorian household costing figure and has no bearing on modern shopping; ignore it or read it as a period curiosity.
Cassell's gives this as "another way" because meat patties were a standing feature of the Victorian table, and this version is the thrifty one - built from Sunday's cold joint. Mutton was the ordinary British roasting meat of the nineteenth century, far more common than lamb, and the problem of what to do with the remains of a large joint drove a whole genre of dishes: rissoles, croquettes, hashes, shepherd's pie and these small covered pies. Puff paste was the elevating touch, turning reheated scraps into something that could be sent in on a dish with a napkin. The reliance on ketchup - meaning the mushroom or walnut sort - is characteristic; bottled savoury sauces were the standard way of putting back the depth that reheating takes out.