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Vegetable Marrow, Stuffed
Peel thinly two moderate-sized marrows; then cut a thick piece off one end of each, and scoop out the seeds. Press closely into the hollows some good pork sausage-meat, or, if preferable, some nicely-seasoned minced beef or mutton. Tie the piece which was cut off into its original position with twine. If there should be any difficulty about scooping out the seeds, the marrows may be divided into halves lengthwise, and filled with sausage meat, the pieces may then be pressed closely together, and tied in three or four places with twine. Having thus prepared the marrows, lay them in a saucepan, put a slice of butter upon each, and sprinkle over them a little pepper, salt, cayenne, and grated nutmeg. Pour upon them half a pint of stock, and add a table-spoonful of vinegar. Cover the saucepan closely, and simmer the marrows as gently as possible for four hours. Baste frequently with the sauce. Lift them carefully upon a dish, skim the fat from the sauce, strain it over them, and serve. This dish may be rendered more piquant by rubbing a freshly-cut clove of garlic quickly across the saucepan before the marrows are put into it, and by adding to the sauce the juice of three or four ripe tomatoes pressed through muslin. Time to stew the marrows, four hours. Probable cost, 2d. to 6d. each.
A braise rather than a bake: the marrows sit in stock on the hob, not in the oven. Two things need attention before you start — the vegetable itself, and the stated cooking time.
- What a vegetable marrow isA marrow is a summer squash grown to full size — in practice an overgrown courgette, 10 to 14 inches long, with soft skin and a seedy core. The recipe gives no weight, only "moderate-sized"; expect something in the region of a pound or two apiece. Large courgettes are the closest supermarket substitute; avoid winter squash, which behaves quite differently.
- Four hours is far too longMarrow flesh is mostly water and collapses to pulp well before that. Forty-five minutes to an hour of gentle simmering will cook the flesh through and the stuffing with it. Test with a skewer through the centre of the filling.
- The stuffing sets the timingSausage-meat or minced beef packed into a cavity is dense and slow to heat. Whatever the vegetable is doing, the centre of the filling needs to reach 71C/160F; check with an instant-read thermometer rather than by eye.
- Half a pint of stockAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. It is a braising liquid, not a poaching bath — the marrows should sit in it, not be covered by it, which is why the recipe calls for frequent basting.
- Tying and splittingThe halve-and-tie method is the easier one and worth defaulting to. Use plain cotton butcher's twine, three or four turns, and don't cinch it so tight that the soft flesh splits under pressure.
- Tomato and garlic additionsPressing three or four ripe tomatoes through muslin gives roughly 150 ml of thin juice, which will need reducing at the end or the sauce stays watery. The garlic rubbed round the pan gives only a trace of flavour; a crushed clove in the stock is more useful if you want it noticeable.
- Finishing the sauceSkimming and straining is the whole finish here — there is no thickening. Lift the marrows out, boil the liquid down by half in the open pan, then pour it over.
- YieldTwo stuffed marrows of this size serve four generously as a main course with potatoes or bread.
The vegetable marrow was a Victorian kitchen-garden staple, valued precisely for the quality that makes it unfashionable now: it grew enormous, cheaply, and needed using up. Cassell's price note — twopence to sixpence each — puts it among the cheaper items in the book, and the recipe's logic is the logic of much nineteenth-century English cookery, which is to carry a small quantity of meat as far as possible inside something bulky and bland. Stuffing hollow vegetables with forcemeat and stewing them slowly is a technique with a wide distribution, and courgettes and aubergines were treated the same way elsewhere; the additions offered at the end here, garlic rubbed round the pan and strained tomato juice, are flagged as making the dish "more piquant."