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PEPPER POT (a hotch-potch)
Put four quarts of boiling water into a large stewpan, with a mixture of any meats that may be preferred--either three pounds of gravy beef and half a pound of lean ham, or three pounds of the neck of mutton and half a pound of pickled pork; add half a cupful of best rice, a bunch of savoury herbs, two large onions, and three large potatoes coarsely grated. Skim the liquid carefully during the first half hour, and let it simmer gently until all the goodness is drawn out of the meat. This will require from three to four hours. Strain the soup and let it stand until cold, so that the fat may be entirely removed. Put the liquid into the stewpan, with a large fowl cut into joints, and the meat of a lobster or crab finely minced. When the fowl is almost tender, put in a dozen small light suet dumplings, and a pint and a half of whatever vegetables are in season cut up into small pieces. In summer these will consist of peas, cauliflowers, French beans, lettuces, or spinach, and in winter of carrots, turnips, or celery. Season with cayenne and salt, if required. When the vegetables are done enough serve the entire preparation in a tureen. Time, about an hour after the fowl is put in. The probable cost varies with the ingredients. Sufficient for eight or nine persons.
A two-stage soup: a long meat broth that is strained, chilled and degreased, then relaunched with chicken, shellfish, dumplings and vegetables. Plan it over two days, since the chilling step is not optional if you want a clean-tasting result.
- The hinge: the broth is a base, not the dishEverything simmered in the first stage is spent by the time it is strained out, and the recipe never asks for it back. Lift the beef or mutton before it collapses if you want to shred it in at the end; otherwise treat it as broth-making meat and discard it.
- VolumeFour imperial quarts is about 4.5 litres, close to 19 US cups. Expect some loss to four hours' simmering and skimming, so you may end up with appreciably less than you started with; the recipe itself gives no finished quantity, only that it serves eight or nine.
- Meat namesGravy beef is shin or leg — gelatinous and ideal here; beef chuck works. Pickled pork is salt pork, sold by that name or as unsmoked streaky cure; rinse it before use, and hold back the salt until the end.
- A large fowlProbably a mature boiling bird rather than a young roaster, tough enough to stand long simmering. A modern 4-5 lb chicken cut into joints will be tender well inside the hour at a bare simmer, and in any case the recipe's 'about an hour' covers the dumplings and vegetables too, so start testing early.
- Lobster or crabBuy it cooked and picked. Minced shellfish added at the start of the chicken's hour will turn to threads; stir it in during the last five minutes, once the vegetables are nearly done.
- Suet dumplingsNo recipe is given: use 2 parts self-raising flour to 1 part shredded suet by weight, salt, and cold water to a soft dough, rolled into a dozen walnut-sized balls. They need 20 minutes at a gentle simmer with the lid on, and they will swell considerably and thicken the broth.
- Stagger the vegetablesA pint and a half is about 850 ml, roughly three and a half US cups prepared. Carrots, turnip and celery need 20-25 minutes and can go in with the dumplings; peas, beans and cauliflower want 5-8 minutes; lettuce and spinach only need to be stirred through at the end.
- SeasoningDespite the name, the only heat is cayenne — the dish is not black-peppery. Season at the very end, after the salt pork or ham has given up its salt and the dumplings have absorbed liquid.
Cassell's subtitle, a hotch-potch, is the honest description: this is a clearing-out soup in the Scottish hotch-potch tradition, where a long-boiled mutton or beef broth is finished with whatever vegetables the season provides. The name "pepper pot" travelled widely and rarely meant the same thing twice — in the West Indies it describes a long-kept stew preserved with cassareep, the boiled-down juice of bitter cassava, while the Philadelphia version is generally traced to a peppery tripe soup, and neither has much to do with this recipe beyond the cayenne. What the entry really shows is late-Victorian household economy at the more ambitious end: beef and ham for the broth, then a whole fowl, a lobster and a dozen suet dumplings piled into the same tureen, so that one pot carries a meal for nine.