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Veal Pie, Good
Take a pound and a half of veal cutlets a quarter of an inch thick and free from skin and bone, also half a pound of thin ham. Season the meat with a little salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, grated lemon-rind, and powdered mace, and let the quantity of salt used be regulated by the quality of the ham. Divide the meat into pieces an inch and a half square, put it in layers into a buttered pie-dish, and pour over it one-eighth of a pint of cold stock or water. Intersperse amongst the pieces of veal the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs and four forcemeat balls, together with four button mushrooms, or a truffle, if these can be had. The pie, however, will be very good without them. Line the edge of the dish with good pastry, cover with the same, trim with a sharp knife, and ornament the pie. Make a hole in the centre that the steam may escape, and bake the pie in a moderate oven. Have ready some nicely-seasoned veal gravy to pour into the pie after it is baked. Lay paper over the pastry in the oven to keep it from browning too much. Time to bake the pie, two hours. Probable cost, 3s. 6d. Sufficient for a moderate-sized dish.
A Victorian veal-and-ham pie baked in a deep dish rather than raised in a crust. Two things decide whether it succeeds: how salty your ham is, and the gravy poured in at the end.
- The hinge: gravy after bakingAn eighth of a pint of stock is barely enough to keep the meat from drying, and the pie is meant to be finished by pouring seasoned veal gravy through the steam hole once it comes out of the oven. Use a well-reduced, gelatinous veal or chicken stock and a small funnel, and add it while the pie is still hot so it draws in rather than sitting on top.
- One-eighth of a pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 2 1/2 fl oz — a scant 1/3 cup, or about 75 ml. It is a moistening, not a filling of liquid.
- Moderate ovenUsually read as somewhere around 350F/180C. If the pastry is colouring too fast, the instruction to lay paper over it works; a loose sheet of foil is easier. Two hours at that heat will dry thin squares of quarter-inch veal, so 1 1/2 hours at 325F/165C gives better meat, with the last stretch uncovered for colour.
- Salt and the hamThe warning to regulate salt by the ham still applies, and more so: most supermarket ham is wet-cured and considerably saltier than a dry-cured Victorian gammon. Season the veal with pepper, nutmeg, mace and lemon zest, and add little or no salt until you have tasted the ham.
- Veal cutletsWhat is wanted is boneless leg or shoulder cut a quarter of an inch thick and then divided into inch-and-a-half squares as the recipe directs, rather than rib chops. Pork shoulder is a common substitute where veal is hard to buy.
- Forcemeat ballsThe book assumes you know these: minced veal or pork with breadcrumbs, suet or butter, chopped herbs, lemon rind and enough egg to bind, rolled walnut-sized. Good sausage meat with a little parsley and zest is an honest shortcut.
- Hard-boiled yolks onlyThe recipe calls for yolks alone; the likely reason is that whites toughen through a long bake, while the yolks crumble into the gravy.
- Pastry and the steam holeA firm shortcrust or rough puff, with the strip of pastry glued around the rim of the dish so the lid has something to grip. Keep the vent open throughout; if it seals over, the crust lifts and the gravy will not go in afterwards.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of meat; the recipe says only that it is sufficient for a moderate-sized dish, and the four yolks and four forcemeat balls suggest around four servings. The probable cost of 3s 6d is one of the clearer period markers on the page.
Veal and ham baked under a crust was one of the fixtures of the Victorian middle-class table, and such pies were commonly made in more than one way — raised in a hot-water crust for cold eating and travelling, or, as here, baked in a pie-dish for serving hot. The pairing is practical rather than sentimental: veal is mild and lean and gives up little fat or flavour of its own, so a salted ham supplies both, while hard-boiled egg yolks, mace, nutmeg and lemon rind carry a much older English seasoning habit for white meats that goes back to the spiced pies of the seventeenth century. Truffles and button mushrooms are offered and then waved away — "the pie, however, will be very good without them" — which is the characteristic voice of this book, written for households that aspired to grand cookery but were counting shillings. The instruction to finish with gravy poured in after baking reflects the fact that a pie of raw meat and almost no liquid comes out of the oven dry; cold-eating versions solved the same problem with a jellied stock that set firm around the meat.