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ROLLS, MEAT (another way)
Pound the meat as above. Form it into rolls, and insert in the centre of each a spoonful of mushrooms which have been stewed in butter till tender and then drained. Fold the rolls in puff-paste, and bake in a well-heated oven until the pastry is done enough. Time to bake, about twenty minutes.
A Victorian way with leftover roast: pounded cooked meat, a mushroom centre, and a puff-paste jacket that bakes in the time it takes the pastry to colour. The whole method rests on the meat already being cooked.
- "Pound the meat as above"The back-reference is to a preceding meat-roll entry, which on the evidence of the twenty-minute bake must have used cold cooked meat pounded to a paste rather than raw. Twenty minutes in the oven cooks the pastry only, so use meat that is already fully cooked — leftover roast beef, veal, lamb or chicken, worked in a food processor with a little softened butter, salt and pepper until it holds together.
- "A well-heated oven"For puff paste this means 425–450F (220–230C). Puff needs the initial blast to lift the layers; a moderate oven gives grey, greasy pastry.
- The mushrooms must be dryStew them in butter until they have given up their liquid, then drain and cool them completely. Any moisture left in the filling turns to steam inside the roll and blows the seams open or leaves the base soggy.
- Shaping and sealingRoll the meat paste into cylinders about the size of a fat sausage, press a channel down the centre for the mushrooms, and close it over. Wrap in puff paste rolled about 3mm thick, seal the seam with water and lay the rolls seam-side down.
- GlazeThe original does not mention one. Egg wash was common in period pastry work, and a brush of beaten egg plus a small vent cut in the top of each roll will improve the result.
- Puff-pasteAll-butter shop-bought puff is a fair substitute for a period rough puff. Keep it and the filling cold until the moment they go into the oven.
- Timing and donenessTwenty minutes is realistic at that heat for rolls of this size. Judge by the pastry: deep gold, crisp underneath, with the layers visibly separated at the cut ends.
- Yield and servingA pound of cooked meat and a 500g block of pastry makes six to eight rolls, enough for four as a main course with a gravy or a sharp sauce, or a dozen smaller ones for a cold table.
Cassell's belongs to a period when a large joint was the norm and the second and third appearances of that joint were a matter of professional skill rather than apology. Pounded cold meat — bound with butter, seasoned with mace, cayenne or anchovy — was the standard vehicle: it became potted meat under a butter seal, forcemeat for stuffing, or, as here, the interior of something enclosed in pastry. The meat roll in puff paste is often said to descend from the older raised pie and the French pâté en croûte, scaled down to individual portions that could be sent up hot or eaten cold at a picnic or a supper table. The mushroom heart is the touch that marks it as a dish for company rather than plain reheating; stewed mushrooms and mushroom ketchup were used freely in a Victorian kitchen, and a spoonful buried in the centre supplied the depth that reheated meat had lost.