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Veal, Minced, and Macaroni
Soak half a pound of macaroni in water for an hour, then put it into salted water, and boil gently till tender. Whilst it is boiling cut about a pound and a half of cold roast veal into thin slices free from fat, skin, and bone. Mince the meat finely with a quarter of its weight in ham (if this is to be had); season the mince with salt, white pepper, grated nutmeg, and grated lemon-rind, and add a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs. Bind the mixture together with one or two eggs. Butter a mould, drain the macaroni, and wind it round and round the inside. Put the mince in the centre, place a dish on the top of the mould, and steam the preparation over boiling water. Turn it upon a dish, and serve with brown gravy, made from the bones and trimmings of the veal and ham, poured round, but not upon it. Time to boil the macaroni, varying with the quantity; to steam the preparation, half an hour. Probable cost, exclusive of the cold meat, 8d. Sufficient for four persons.
A Victorian way of turning Sunday's cold roast into a moulded centrepiece. The technique is sound; only the macaroni handling and the steaming setup need translating.
- Skip the soak, undercook the macaroniNineteenth-century macaroni was sold as long, thick tubes, which is presumably why the book calls for an hour's soak; modern dried pasta does not need it — boil long tubes until just short of al dente, since they will steam for another half hour inside the mould and go slack if fully cooked first.
- The hinge: line the mould while the pasta is hotWind the drained macaroni round the buttered mould immediately, while it is still pliable and slightly tacky. Cooled pasta cracks as you coil it and the turned-out shape falls apart.
- "A pound and a half of cold roast veal"Any cold roast works — veal is scarce and expensive now, and cold roast pork, turkey or chicken behaves identically. Weigh after trimming fat and skin as instructed, or the mince turns greasy.
- Mince, not paste"Mince finely" means hand-chopped or a coarse grinder plate. A food processor will reduce cooked meat to a pâté texture in seconds; pulse briefly if you use one.
- BindingA quarter pound of breadcrumbs (about 2 cups fresh, 1 cup dried) plus one or two eggs is a lot of dry filler for cooked meat. Add a few spoonfuls of the gravy or stock so the mixture is moist enough to hold together without being dense.
- Steaming the mouldCover the mould with foil rather than an inverted dish, stand it on a rack in a deep pan with water an inch or two up the sides, cover, and keep at a bare simmer for 30 minutes. Top up with boiling water if it runs low.
- Turning outLet it stand five to ten minutes off the heat before inverting. Straight from the steamer it is too loose to hold its shape.
- The gravyA brown gravy from veal and ham bones is essentially a small brown stock reduced and thickened. Any well-flavoured brown stock or good jus does the job. Pour it round the base, as directed — poured over, it soaks the macaroni casing and dulls the pattern.
- Yield and costServes four as written. The "8d" is exclusive of the cold meat, as the recipe states: it covers the macaroni, crumbs, eggs and seasoning only, the meat being assumed already paid for.
This belongs to the large Victorian family of *rechauffés* — dishes built entirely around yesterday's roast, which a household with a joint on the table several times a week would have had frequent occasion to make. Cassell's, like Mrs Beeton before it, devoted whole runs of entries to them, since presenting cold meat as something other than cold meat was one of the practical tests of a cook. The macaroni-lined mould is an Anglicised borrowing from Italian *timballo* and the French *timbale*, both of which enclose a filling in a case of pasta, rice or pastry and turn it out whole. The parenthetical "if this is to be had" beside the ham, and the careful costing in pence, are characteristic of the book's audience: middle-class households working to a budget, for whom a recipe was also an accounting exercise.