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Potato Stuffing, for Goose and Sucking Pig
Wash and peel three or four large sound potatoes, and cut them into very small pieces. Put them into a stewpan with two ounces of butter, a table-spoonful of finely-shredded parsley, a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg, and, if liked, a finely-minced onion. Cover closely, and let them steam over a gentle fire until they are three-parts cooked; they must not be so soft that they will fall to pieces. Shake the saucepan now and then to keep them from burning at the bottom of the pan. Mince the liver of the pig or goose, and put it with the potatoes. Stir the mixture over the fire for a minute or two, and it will be ready for use. If liked, one or two cold fried sausages may be freed from skin, cut up small, and used instead of the liver. Time to steam the potatoes, about twenty minutes. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for one small pig. POTATO STUFFING FOR SUCKING PIG. (See PIG, SUCKING, STUFFING OF POTATOES FOR.)
A Victorian dry stuffing that leans on the potato itself rather than breadcrumbs, built to soak up the fat rendering out of a goose or a sucking pig. Most of it translates directly; the main adjustments are the undercooking of the potato and the food-safety arithmetic of stuffing a bird.
- The hinge: undercook the potatoThree-parts cooked means the dice still hold a firm centre and will not collapse when stirred. They finish inside the bird, absorbing fat; a fully cooked potato turns to paste and defeats the point of the dish.
- Cut size"very small pieces" probably means something on the order of a 1 cm dice; larger pieces risk not being tender by the time the goose is done, and grated potato will steam into mash in the covered pan.
- Steaming in the panTwo ounces of butter (about 55 g) with no added liquid is a dry braise; use a heavy pan with a tight lid over the lowest heat and shake it every few minutes. If it colours before 20 minutes are up, the heat is too high.
- The liverGoose liver is fine and rich; the liver of a sucking pig is unlikely to reach you unless you buy the animal whole. Chicken livers are an easy substitute, and the sausage variant works well - use a cooked, cooled sausage, skinned and crumbled, not raw meat, as the recipe's "cold fried sausages" implies.
- Stuffing and temperatureThe liver gets only a minute or two in the pan, so it finishes cooking inside the roast. Fill the cavity loosely and check that the centre of the stuffing reaches 74C/165F, or bake it in a separate dish alongside the bird for the last 40 minutes.
- Nutmeg and onionGrated nutmeg with potato and butter is a standard Victorian pairing and is easy to overdo - a few rasps is enough for this quantity. If you use the onion, mince it finely and add it at the start so it softens with the potato.
- Yield and cost"Probable cost, 6d" is a late-Victorian retail price and has no modern equivalent worth quoting. Three or four large potatoes gives a generous bowlful: the recipe reckons it sufficient for one small pig, and it is easily halved.
Cassell's places this among a run of stuffings distinguished chiefly by their starch - bread, chestnut, potato - and the potato version belongs to the roast goose tradition of northern Europe, where the bird's own fat is the point and the stuffing exists to catch it. Sage and onion was the standard English farce for goose and pork; potato stuffing is generally regarded as the German and Irish variant, and it appears in English books of this period alongside the older bread mixtures rather than replacing them. The instruction to mince in the liver reflects a kitchen that expected the giblets to arrive with the bird and considered wasting them a fault. Sucking pig, roasted whole and stuffed, was still a recognised set piece for a large table, though already something of a special occasion dish; the cross-reference at the end shows how Cassell's dictionary format sent readers back and forth between the stuffing and the joint it belonged to.