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Chopped Aspic (Make a paste of the flour)
Make a paste of the flour, mixing the butter and milk into it hot, add the yolk of egg, a little salt, mix and knead well. Line a raised pie-tin with this paste about a quarter of an inch thick.
Mince the veal and pork together; season with salt, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg; place this mince all round the mould inside the paste; fill in the centre with fillets of pigeon, pheasant, grouse, chicken, strips of ham, and the larks and quails stuffed with liver farce or foie-gras; sprinkle over the chopped mushrooms, truffles, pistachios and parsley, a little pepper and salt; cover over with some of the mince, wet the paste round and lay on the top cover, close it well round the edge, trim it, and work up the trimmings of paste to make an ornament for the top. Tie a band of buttered paper round the mould about three inches above the top, and bake in a steady oven for three hours. When the pie is nearly cold move the top ornament of paste, and pour in about half a pint of good stock, not too liquid or it will soak through the paste, replace the ornament, and when quite cold, dish up the pie, garnished with chopped aspic.
Galantine of Fowl, Ingredients.
This is a raised game pie in the full Edwardian manner: a hot-water paste moulded by hand, a lining of forcemeat, a centre of small birds and truffles, and jellied stock poured in through the lid once the pie has cooled. The instructions assume a cook who already knows the form, so the points below fill in what the text takes for granted.
- The paste is hot-water crustThe butter and milk are heated and worked into the flour, with the yolk added after. It must be kneaded and shaped while warm and pliable; once it goes cold it cracks and will not take the curve of the mould.
- Quantities are not given hereThe proportions for the paste, the veal and pork mince, and the birds belonged to an ingredient list that does not appear with these directions. Published proportions for hot-water paste vary widely between sources, so treat any modern ratio as a guide rather than this author's figure.
- "A steady oven"Not a fierce one, and held even for the full three hours. The book gives no temperature; a moderate oven (around 325F/160C) is the usual modern equivalent. The paste is there as a mould and a container as much as a food, and a fierce oven will colour it long before the centre of the meat is cooked.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockThree hours suits a large deep pie of several pounds. Whatever the size, take the centre of the filling to 165F (74C) on a probe; pork and poultry forcemeat packed tight in pastry heats slowly.
- The paper bandA collar of buttered paper tied three inches above the rim protects the pastry standing proud of the mould and stops it scorching. Note that this recipe already uses a mould and still calls for the band.
- Larks are not obtainableSkylarks and most small songbirds are legally protected in Britain and North America and across most of Europe (a few EU states still permit lark shooting under derogation), and cannot be bought for the table. Quail is farmed and widely sold; use extra quail, or boned poussin, in their place.
- The stock must set"Not too liquid" means a stock reduced until it is frankly gelatinous - one made from veal or pork bones and trotters, or a good stock with leaf gelatine dissolved into it. Warm it just enough to pour, add it slowly through the vent, and let the pie set overnight in the cold before cutting.
- Chopped aspic garnishThe aspic is set firm in a shallow tray, turned out and chopped with a wet knife into rough dice, then spooned round the base of the pie at the last moment. It slumps and weeps quickly at room temperature, so garnish only when the pie is going to table.
- Keeping and servingThe pie is meant to be eaten cold. Keep it refrigerated and finish it within three days; the jelly is a sealant in the short term, not a preservative.
The raised pie was the set piece of the English game larder, and this version - veal and pork forcemeat lining the walls, a centre of boned game birds, ham, truffles and pistachios - is the grand hotel form of it, and it closely resembles the French pâté en croûte of the same period. The paste is structural: hot-water crust was developed to be moulded by hand into a standing wall that would hold its shape unsupported through a long bake, and in older English kitchens the resulting "coffin" is often said to have been discarded rather than eaten, though food historians dispute this. Pouring gelatinous stock in through a hole in the lid after baking is the traditional solution to the gap that opens as the meat shrinks and cools; the jelly fills the void and excludes air. Small birds such as larks and quail were sold by the dozen in Victorian and Edwardian markets and were standard filling for pies of this kind, which is why they appear here without comment - a reminder of how much the legal and commercial landscape of game has changed since the book was written.