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Veal and Ham Pie
Take from a pound and a half to two pounds of veal cutlets or of nice lean veal from any part. Cut these into neat square pieces about the size of a walnut. Put a layer at the bottom of a pie-dish, and sprinkle upon the meat a little pepper and salt, a pinch of grated lemonrind, another of powdered mace, and another of minced savoury herbs. Lay upon these flavouring ingredients two or three slices of ham or streaky bacon, and repeat the alternate layers until the dish is full. Let ham constitute the uppermost layer. The yolks of three eggs boiled hard and cut into slices may be interspersed with the meat. Pour half a pint of stock upon the meat. Line the edges of the dish with good pastry, cover with the same, ornament the surface, brush it over with yolk of egg, and bake in a well-heated oven. When done enough, pour a little boiling gravy into the pie, and serve. This pie may be enriched by the addition of a little forcemeat, or a few oysters or mushrooms, or a sweetbread, but it will be found excellent without them. If liked, a gravy prepared as follows may be poured upon the meat instead of stock. Take a table-spoonful of chopped mushrooms, a minced shallot, and a tea-spoonful of parsley. Fry these in a little butter over a gentle fire. Add half a pint of stock or water, a small piece of brown thickening, a little pepper and salt, and a spoonful of ketchup. Stir the sauce till it boils, add a few drops of lemon-juice, strain it, and it will be ready for use. Time to bake the pie, an hour and a half or more according to size. Sufficient for five or six persons. Probable cost, 3s. 6d., plainly made.
A straightforward raised-flavour meat pie that depends more on seasoning between the layers than on any technique. Two things need translating: the oven, and the Victorian pantry items.
- Oven heat and timeA "well-heated oven" is not specified further; a practical modern reading is a hot start of around 425F to set and colour the pastry, then dropping to 325-350F for the remainder of the hour and a half so the veal cooks through gently. Veal in walnut-sized dice is done at about 145F internal with a rest; a full ninety minutes at high heat would dry it.
- Half a pint of stockImperial measure, so 10 fl oz — about 1¼ US cups. Do not fill above the meat; the liquid will rise as it heats and lift the pastry lid.
- Cut a ventThe instruction to pour boiling gravy in after baking assumes a hole in the crust, traditionally kept open with a small paper or metal funnel. Cut one before baking or you will have nowhere to add the gravy and a lid that steams loose.
- Brown thickeningA cooked brown roux, flour toasted in butter until nut-coloured. A teaspoon each of butter and flour cooked together will do the same job for the optional gravy.
- KetchupIn Victorian Britain this means mushroom or walnut ketchup — thin, dark, salty, nothing like tomato ketchup. Mushroom ketchup is still sold; a dash of Worcestershire sauce sits in roughly the same register.
- The pastry"Good pastry" is not specified; for a pie of this sort it would most likely be puff paste or a short crust. Lining the dish edges with a strip of pastry before laying on the lid is what gives the top something to seal against.
- Egg yolksOnly the hard-boiled yolks go in, sliced; the whites are not used.
- ServingFive or six portions. The recipe serves it hot, with boiling gravy poured in at the end; a stock rich in gelatine would set lightly if the pie were left to go cold, as many veal and ham pies were eaten.
Veal and ham is one of the great English pie pairings, built on a simple contrast: lean, mild veal that gives almost no seasoning of its own, layered against cured pork that gives plenty of salt and colour. The pie was at home hot from the oven and also cold on a sideboard or in a picnic hamper. The pepper, lemon rind, mace and herbs are scattered between courses of meat rather than mixed in, and the closing note that the pie "will be found excellent without" forcemeat, oysters, mushrooms or sweetbread offers an economical version and a company version of the same dish. Veal was a more ordinary butcher's meat in Britain then than it is now; a shoulder or leg cut trimmed of sinew is the modern equivalent of "nice lean veal from any part."