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Veal Cake, Superior
Put a pint of stock made from bones into a stewpan with three young onions, each stuck with one clove, a small sprig of thyme, a bayleaf, a small piece of mace, and half an ounce of gelatine. Place the saucepan on the fire, and stir its contents till the gelatine is dissolved. To clarify it, stir into it when cold the white and crushed shell of an egg beaten up with a little water. Let it boil, draw it to the side, and let it simmer gently without touching it for ten minutes; take it off the fire, let it settle for ten minutes, and then strain it through a jelly-bag. Cut a pound and a half of veal collops and three-quarters of a pound of bacon or ham into thin slices. Pour a spoonful or two of the savoury jelly into an ordinary potting-pan or earthenware dish. Let it get cold, then cover with a layer of hard-boiled yolks of eggs cut into slices. Place on this a neat layer of the slices of veal, then a little salt, cayenne, chopped parsley, and shallot, and afterwards a few slices of ham. Pour a little jelly upon these, and repeat the layers until the dish is full. Cover the pan closely with a stiff paste of flour and water, put it in a dripping-tin three-parts filled with boiling water, and keep adding more water as this boils away, until the cake is done enough. Take it out of the oven, and set in a cool place for some hours. Turn it upon a dish, and garnish with parsley. If the cake is put into the oven without the water under it, it will in all probability be dried up and spoilt. Time to bake the cake, an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. Probable cost, 4s. Sufficient for a breakfast, luncheon, or supper dish.
A cold layered veal-and-ham loaf set in its own clarified jelly, baked gently in a water bath and turned out like a terrine. The water bath is the whole recipe: the book says so outright, and it is right.
- The hinge: never bake it dryThe dish sits in a dripping tin three-parts filled with boiling water, topped up as it evaporates. Without it the lean veal squeezes out its juice and the jelly boils away. Use a deep roasting tin and a kettle of boiling water alongside.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given because none could be. A moderate oven, in the region of 325F, suits the stated hour and a quarter to hour and a half; the water bath keeps the meat itself well below that. Check the centre with a thermometer and take it to at least 160F.
- MeasuresA pint of stock is a British Imperial pint, 20 fl oz, so 2 1/2 US cups. Half an ounce of gelatine is about 14 g, or two envelopes of powdered gelatine — well above modern practice for a pint, which is what makes the cake sliceable rather than merely moist.
- Veal collopsCollops are thin slices cut from the leg or loin — in current terms, veal cutlets or escalopes pounded thin. A pound and a half of thin-sliced veal is easiest to get by asking for schnitzel cuts and flattening them further between sheets of plastic.
- Mace and young onionsA small piece of mace means a blade of dried mace, the lacy outer coat of nutmeg; a pinch of ground mace substitutes. Young onions here are small spring onion bulbs or scallion whites, not the green tops.
- The flour-and-water pasteA stiff luting paste was the period's way of sealing a pan without a fitted lid. A tight double layer of foil, or a lid with foil beneath it, does the same job and does not have to be chiselled off.
- Clarifying the jellyThe egg-white raft is worth doing if you want the sliced cake to look like glass, but the jelly sets and tastes the same unclarified. If you skip it, strain the hot stock through a damp cloth instead.
- Yield and servingEnough for six to eight as a cold breakfast, luncheon or supper dish, cut in slices about half an inch thick. Chill overnight.
History: Potted and moulded meats like this were a staple of the Victorian cold table, where a single dish could serve breakfast, luncheon and supper. Veal was a natural choice: mild, very lean, and rich in the collagen that makes bone stock set firm, so the meat and its aspic reinforced one another. Commercially refined gelatine of the kind Cassell's calls for became widely available and reliable in British kitchens over the second half of the nineteenth century, reducing the older labour of boiling down calves' feet.