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Olive Pie, Veal
Line the edges of a pie-dish with good puff-paste. Cut two pounds of the fillet of veal into thin slices a quarter of an inch thick, four inches long, and two wide. Make a forcemeat with four ounces of minced veal, four ounces of finely-shredded suet, four ounces of grated bread-crumbs, three table-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, a tea-spoonful of mixed sweet herbs, a tea-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful each of pepper, powdered mace, and grated lemon-rind, and the well-beaten yolks of two eggs. Season the slices of veal with a little pepper and salt, place a slice of fat bacon upon each, and a little of the forcemeat, and roll them up neatly and securely. Make the forcemeat which remains into balls. Place these amongst the desired number of olives in a pie-dish, pour half a pint of nicely-seasoned gravy over them, line the edges of the dish with a good crust, place a cover of the same over the top, brush the pie with beaten egg, and bake in a good oven. The addition of a table-spoonful of lemon-juice and a glass of sherry, or a few sliced mushrooms, would greatly improve the gravy. This pie is good either cold or hot. Time, an hour and a half to bake. Probable cost, 4s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian raised-flavour meat pie built on veal olives — thin escalopes rolled around bacon and forcemeat — with whole olives and forcemeat balls packed around them. The instructions are compressed and slightly repetitive; read them through before you start.
- Secure the rollsThis is the hinge. Each roll must be tied with kitchen string or pinned with a cocktail stick before it goes in the dish, or the forcemeat unwinds into the gravy during ninety minutes of baking and you are left with a mince pie.
- "Line the edges" twiceThe recipe says it at the start and again near the end. Do it once: a strip of pastry pressed onto the dampened rim, then the lid laid on and sealed to it. This is standard Victorian pie-dish practice and gives the lid something to grip.
- Salt-spoonful and half a pintA salt-spoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so pepper, mace and lemon rind each go in at that amount. Half an imperial pint of gravy is 10 fl oz, about a cup and a fifth — enough to moisten, not to submerge.
- "A good oven"Around 375-400F. Start at the higher end for 15-20 minutes to set and colour the puff pastry, then drop to 350F for the remainder; cover the top loosely with foil if it darkens before the hour and a half is up.
- The olives themselvesUse stoned green olives in brine, drained and rinsed. If yours are very salty, blanch them a minute in boiling water and cut back the teaspoon of salt in the forcemeat.
- SuetFour ounces of shredded beef suet is what binds and moistens the forcemeat. Packet shredded suet works directly; vegetable suet is a fair substitute. Butter, grated frozen, will do at a pinch but the texture is softer.
- Veal, and what to use insteadTwo pounds of fillet cut into slices a quarter-inch thick means asking for veal escalopes and beating them thinner. Thin-cut pork loin or turkey breast steaks take the same treatment if veal is unavailable or unwanted.
- Doneness and servingThe pie serves five or six as written. The rolls are thin and cook well within the time, but check that the gravy is bubbling at the centre. If you take the sherry-and-lemon option, add them to the gravy before pouring, not after.
The "olives" in the title do double duty, and that is the interesting part. Whole olives go into the dish, but veal olives was also a standing English name for thin slices of meat rolled round a stuffing — a usage usually traced to the older English alows or aloes, and often compared to the French alouettes sans tête, "headless larks," the name said to come from the shape of the little rolls. Cassell's was compiled in the 1870s and 1880s, by which time both senses were current in English kitchens. The dish belongs to a class of large, well-seasoned covered pies meant to be eaten hot at dinner and cold the next day, which is why the entry notes it is good either way; sherry, lemon juice and mace were common Victorian seasonings for veal. The costing at 4s. 6d. suggests a solid middle-class dish rather than a cheap one.