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Veal Patties
Make the patty-cases in the usual way (see PATTIES, PREPARATION OF). Bake them, and, when they are done enough, have ready to fill them a savoury preparation made according to any of the following recipes. No. 1. Mince, first separately and afterwards together, half a pound of lean veal and two ounces of ham. Add a table-spoonful of flour, a tea-spoonful of grated Parmesan, the rind of half a lemon, grated, a pinch of grated nutmeg, and a little pepper and salt. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Put the mince into a saucepan and moisten it with a little strong veal stock that will jelly when cold. Stir over a gentle fire for a quarter of an hour. Add two table-spoonfuls of thick cream and a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice, and the mince will be ready for use. No. 2. Mince half a pound of cooked lean veal free from skin and fat, and half a dozen oysters separately. Take as much nicely-flavoured veal stock (that will jelly when cold) as will moisten the mince. Mix with it two table-spoonfuls of thick cream, the oyster liquor, and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of grated lemon-rind. Put the sauce with the mince into a saucepan, and let it get quite hot. Put in the oysters for half a minute, and serve. No. 3. Take a pound of cooked lean veal free from skin and gristle. Cut it into strips, and mince finely with a quarter of a pound of lean ham. Put the bones and trimmings of the veal into a saucepan with a pint of water, a bunch of parsley, an inch of thin lemon-rind, half a dozen peppercorns, and a blade of mace. Simmer this gravy for an hour or more till it is strong and pleasantly flavoured. Strain it, let it get cold, and free it from fat. Put the minced veal into a small saucepan with as much gravy as will moisten it, and add three table-spoonfuls of cream and a small piece of butter rolled in flour. Stir the mince over a gentle fire till it is quite hot and smooth, when it will be ready for use. If preferred, the mince may be baked in the cases instead of being put into them after they are baked, but it is best to bake the pastry separately, as the mince hardens in baking.
Three fillings for baked pastry cases, all built on the same idea: finely minced veal bound with a gelatinous stock and cream. The pastry and the filling are handled separately, and the recipe tells you why at the very end.
- The hinge: bake the cases emptyThe final line is the important one — minced veal stiffens and dries when baked, so blind-bake the cases and fill them hot just before serving. If you fill and bake together you get a dry, granular interior.
- Patty-casesThese are small puff-pastry cases (bouchees or vol-au-vent shells), not a modern casserole crust. The book gives no temperature; bake in a hot oven until fully risen and coloured, then lift out the soft centres and dry the insides for a few minutes. Bought frozen puff pastry shells work without apology.
- Stock "that will jelly when cold"This means a properly gelatinous homemade veal stock, which sets in the fridge; it is what makes the filling cling rather than run. Recipe No. 3 shows you how to make it from the bones and trimmings. A commercial stock reduced hard, or reduced stock with a little powdered gelatine, gives the same body.
- Spoon measuresA dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons. Victorian table- and tea-spoonfuls are close enough to modern ones for a filling like this, where you moisten to consistency rather than to a fixed volume.
- No. 1 uses raw vealUnlike the other two, this filling starts with raw minced veal and cooks it in the pan. A quarter of an hour of gentle stirring is enough, but check it reaches 160F throughout before the cream goes in, and keep it below a boil once it does.
- Oysters, No. 2Half a minute is right and not a misprint. Oysters tighten and turn rubbery within a couple of minutes of heat; add them at the last moment, off the boil, and use their liquor as part of the moistening.
- Butter rolled in flourBeurre manié — soft butter kneaded with an equal weight of flour, dropped into the hot mince to thicken it smoothly. Whisk it in off a hard boil so it disperses without lumping.
- YieldNo yield is given. As a rough guide, half a pound of veal might fill eight to ten small cases and the pound in No. 3 roughly twice that; serve as a hot first course or a light supper dish.
Filled pastry cases were a fixture of the late-Victorian and Edwardian table precisely because they solved a problem: they turned the cold remains of a roast or a boiled joint into something that could be handed round at a supper or a ball, hot and self-contained, without ever looking like leftovers. Two of the three fillings here specify cooked veal, which is the giveaway. Veal's mildness made it a favoured carrier for the flavourings this book reaches for again and again — lemon rind, mace, nutmeg, a little ham for savour, cream to finish. The pairing of veal with oysters in No. 2 belongs to an older English habit, generally traced to the period when oysters were abundant and inexpensive enough to be used as a seasoning agent rather than a luxury. The book arranges its cookery as a dictionary, so the reader is sent off to a separate entry for the pastry and given only the fillings here, in the manner of a reference work rather than a narrative cookbook.