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Patties, Fried
Prepare some good puff-paste, and roll it out to the thickness of about a quarter of an inch, stamp it with a pastry-cutter into rounds an inch and three-quarters in diameter, place a tea-spoonful of minced meat between each pair of these, moisten the edges, pinch them securely, and fry them in plenty of fat until they are crisped and lightly browned. They should be placed in a wire drainer, plunged into the fat when it is boiling, and well drained from it before they are served. The following is one amongst many of the preparations which may be put into the patties. Mince finely six ounces of cold dressed veal, and twelve ounces of boiled ham; add an egg, boiled hard and chopped small, and season the mixture with a little pepper, salt, powdered mace, and grated lemon-rind; moisten it with a table-spoonful of thick cream and one of good gravy. It will then be ready for use. Time to fry the patties, twelve to fifteen minutes. Probable cost, 2d. each. A dozen are required for a dish.
A Victorian fried patty is a small deep-fried turnover of puff paste, not the shallow baked cup we now call a patty case. The filling is entirely pre-cooked, so the frying is only there to cook and crisp the pastry.
- Frying time is the thing to ignoreTwelve to fifteen minutes will overcook a small puff-paste round. At 350-360F these need roughly 3-5 minutes, turning once, until deep gold and puffed.
- "Boiling fat"Fat does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to bubble vigorously around what is dropped in, about 350-360F. Test with a scrap of the pastry trimmings, which should surface and sizzle within a few seconds.
- The wire drainerThis is a frying basket. Lowering the patties in together and lifting them out together keeps the pastry from sticking to the pan bottom and lets them drain fully; drain further on paper or a rack, never on a closed plate where steam softens the crust.
- SealingThe hinge of the recipe. Moisten the edges with water rather than egg, press firmly all round, and chill the sealed patties for 20-30 minutes before frying. A patty that opens in the fat sends filling into the oil and ruins the batch.
- "Cold dressed veal"Cooked leftover veal, not raw. If veal is inconvenient, cooked chicken or turkey behaves identically. The ham should be a mild boiled ham, not a dry-cured one, or the seasoning salt will be too much.
- Filling quantityEighteen ounces of minced meat is far more than twelve teaspoonfuls; the filling recipe will fill several dozen patties. Either scale the meat down to about 4 oz total for a dish of twelve, or plan on a much larger batch and freeze the shaped, unfried patties.
- Mace and lemon-rindPowdered mace is the outer sheath of nutmeg and is milder and more floral; nutmeg at half the quantity is the nearest substitute. Both mace and lemon zest are doing the work of cutting the richness of ham and cream, so do not leave them out.
- Size and yieldRounds of 1 3/4 inches make a very small patty, two bites at most. A dozen is given as a dish, which suggests a small course rather than a main; count on three or four per person as a starter.
Cassell's places these under fried patties to distinguish them from the baked vol-au-vent and the patty-pan tartlet; the word "patty" is itself generally traced to the French pâté. The whole logic of the dish is the Victorian larder: a joint of veal and a boiled ham left over from an earlier meal, minced fine, bound with a spoonful of cream and gravy, and turned into something that looks freshly made. The costing of 2d. each is characteristic of the book, which prices its dishes. Mace, hard-boiled egg and grated lemon-rind in a forcemeat is an older English seasoning pattern, common in eighteenth-century cookery and still standard in the 1870s.