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Egg Cutlets
Ingredients.
Two hard-boiled Eggs.
Half an ounce of Butter.
Three-quarters of an ounce of Flour.
One gill of Milk.
One teaspoonful of Curry Powder.
This entry gives quantities only — the method that would have followed in the original class notes is not on the page. What the proportions describe is a thick curried panada bound with chopped hard-boiled egg, shaped, crumbed and fried, which is how any late-Victorian cookery school would have handled it.
- The gillIn a British book of this period a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, so 5 fl oz or about 140 ml. It is not the 4 fl oz gill of American measure.
- The hinge: the panada must be very stiffThe hinge: the panada needs to be stiff -- Half an ounce of butter and three-quarters of an ounce of flour to one gill of milk gives a sauce much thicker than a pouring one, though slightly slacker than the usual 1 oz to 1 oz binding panada. Cook it until it leaves the side of the pan in a mass, then spread it on a plate to cool completely — a soft mixture will not hold a cutlet shape and will burst in the fat.
- "Cutlets" means the shapeNo meat is involved. The cooled paste is divided and moulded into small flattened chop shapes, traditionally with a short piece of macaroni pushed in at the narrow end to imitate the bone.
- Curry powderA teaspoonful into this small quantity is assertive. Victorian commercial curry powders were often turmeric-heavy and generally milder than a modern hot blend, though some were well charged with cayenne; if using a fresh, hot blend, start with half and taste the panada before it sets.
- Coating and fryingEgg-and-breadcrumb is assumed, not stated, and no cooking method or temperature appears on the page. In modern terms, deep fat at 180C / 356F for two to three minutes will set and colour the crust — everything inside is already cooked, so this is browning only.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed. Season the panada properly; hard-boiled egg and flour are both bland and the dish falls flat without it.
- YieldProbably four to six small cutlets on these quantities, which suggests a savoury course rather than a main dish.
Savouries were a distinct course in late-Victorian and Edwardian dinners — a small hot, sharply seasoned dish served after the sweet and before dessert fruit. Egg cutlets belong to the large family of croquette-type savouries built on a stiff panada, the same technique used for chicken, lobster and rice croquettes. The form is also frugal: two eggs and a gill of milk, dressed up with a crumbed coating and a mock bone, produced something presentable enough for a dinner party. Curry powder in this context is a British pantry seasoning of the period rather than any attempt at an Indian dish, though the habit of reaching for it is generally traced to the Anglo-Indian households that shaped so much nineteenth-century British cooking.