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Pies, Meat, Jelly For
Break up two pounds of the knuckle of veal, and put it into a stewpan with the knucklebone of a ham, or, failing this, half a pound of raw lean ham. Pour over this three pints of cold water, and add a carrot, an onion, half a bay-leaf, three or four sticks of celery, a handful of parsley, a small sprig of thyme, a blade of mace, two cloves, a roll of lemon-rind, a tea-spoonful of salt, a pinch of cayenne, a lump of sugar, and six peppercorns. Cover the stewpan, and bring the contents slowly to a boil. Remove the scum as it rises, draw the pan to the side, and simmer gently, but continuously, for five hours. Strain the liquid through a jelly-bag, and let it stand until it is cold and stiff. Remove the fat, by first scraping it off with a spoon, and afterwards pouring a little hot water over the surface, draining it off immediately, and then wiping off the moisture with a dry napkin. If the jelly has been gently boiled it should not need to be clarified. If, however, it is not quite clear and bright, dissolve it over a gentle fire, and when it is melted, without being hot, mix with it the white of an egg which has been well whisked, with half a tea-cupful of water, and add the crushed shell of the egg, a dessert-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, and a glassful of sherry. Put the pan on the fire, and stir it briskly until it begins to boil; then draw it to the side, put on the cover, and let it simmer, without being touched, for a quarter of an hour. Strain it again through a jelly-bag, and when cold it is ready for use. The bones, necks, and feet of fowls, or the shank-bones of a leg of mutton, if boiled down carefully with an ox-heel or a calf's foot, will make good meat jelly. Probable cost, 2s. 8d. Sufficient for three pints of jelly.
This is aspic — the savoury gelatin poured into a cold raised pie through the hole in the crust once it comes out of the oven, filling the gap left as the meat shrinks. It is stock and nothing else; the gelatin comes from the veal knuckle and the ham bone, so the technique is all in the heat control.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe hinge: keep it below a real boil -- A hard boil emulsifies fat and breaks up protein, and clarifying will not fully rescue a cloudy jelly. The recipe brings the pan slowly to a boil, then draws it aside; after that, hold it at a bare tremble — an occasional bubble breaking the surface — for the whole five hours, covered as directed.
- Cuts to ask forVeal knuckle is the shank, sawn across; a butcher will cut it to order. If veal is hard to find, ask for split calf's foot or the "cow heel" the recipe calls an ox-heel, both very rich in gelatin and giving a firmer set.
- A blade of maceOne dried outer strip of nutmeg husk, roughly a quarter teaspoon of ground mace. Ground mace will cloud the stock slightly, so tie it in muslin with the cloves and peppercorns if you use it.
- Roll of lemon-rindA strip of peel pared thin with no white pith, curled up. Pith turns bitter over five hours.
- Jelly-bagA conical flannel or felt bag; a double layer of damp muslin in a sieve does the same work. Let it drip without squeezing — pressing pushes fine solids through and undoes the point of the exercise.
- The clarifying raftEgg white and shell must go in when the jelly is melted but no more than lukewarm, or the white sets in strings before it can trap anything. Once it comes to the boil, do not stir or lift the lid; the coagulated raft is doing the filtering.
- Yield and setThe recipe starts with three pints of water and claims three pints of jelly; after five hours' simmering and two strainings you may well end with less, so judge by taste and set rather than by volume. Test the set by chilling a teaspoonful on a saucer; it should be firm enough to hold a cut edge, and can be stiffened by reducing further.
- StorageUnlike the Victorian larder, a refrigerator is not optional here. This is only lightly salted meat stock with no real preservative: chill it fast, keep it cold, and use within three or four days, or freeze it in portions.
- CostTwo shillings and eightpence, given as "probable cost". The modern equivalent is whatever your butcher charges for a sawn veal shank.
Meat jelly of this kind belongs to the age of the cold raised pie — pork, veal-and-ham, game — in which the hot-water crust was baked stiff enough to stand alone and the filling shrank away from it as it cooled. Filling the void with clear savoury jelly was both practical and preservative: it excluded air, held the pie together when sliced, and set the whole thing to a texture that travelled well in a hamper or sat overnight on a supper table. The insistence on clarity is of its time: a bright, faintly amber jelly demonstrated skill, and the recipe's own fallback — clarify only "if it is not quite clear and bright" — shows how much weight was put on it.