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Forcemeat Balls
Ingredients.
Two ounces of Beef Suet.
Three ounces of Bread-crumbs.
One teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
One Egg. Quarter teaspoonful of chopped Thyme and Marjoram.
Half teaspoonful of grated Lemon-rind and Nutmeg.
This is the ingredient list as printed; the method that would have followed it is not on the page. The proportions are the useful part, and they are the classic Victorian forcemeat ratio of roughly half as much suet as crumb.
- What is missingAs given there is no binder and no cooking instruction. Victorian forcemeat of this type is bound with one beaten egg (sometimes only the yolk) and a little milk or stock, worked to a paste that just holds its shape; without it the balls fall apart.
- Beef suetFresh beef suet from a butcher, skinned of membrane and chopped or grated very fine while cold, is what the book means. Packaged shredded suet works; the flour in it will make the mixture slightly drier, so hold back a little of the crumb.
- Bread-crumbsSoft white crumbs from a day-old loaf, not dried or toasted crumbs. Two ounces of suet to three of crumb is a light mix — modern dried crumbs absorb far more liquid and give a heavy, pasty ball.
- The lemon and nutmeg measure"Half teaspoonful of grated Lemon-rind and Nutmeg" is genuinely ambiguous: it may mean half a teaspoon of each, or half a teaspoon of the two together. Half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg is assertive; a quarter teaspoon with the rind of half a lemon is closer to modern taste.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is listed; seasoning was often left unstated in recipes of this kind, so it is worth adding. Season the mixture properly before shaping and fry a scrap to taste it — suet mutes salt.
- Shaping and cookingRoll into balls the size of a marble to a hazelnut. The book gives no method, but balls of this kind are either fried in hot fat until browned, a matter of two to three minutes, or dropped into the simmering stew or soup they are to garnish for about ten minutes. Larger balls made with raw suet want the longer wet cooking so the fat renders through.
- YieldAbout five ounces of dry mixture before any egg is added, which gives roughly 16 to 20 small balls — enough to garnish a dish for four to six.
Forcemeat takes its name from the French farce, a stuffing, and in nineteenth-century British kitchens it did double duty: pressed into a bird or a boned joint, or rolled into small balls as a garnish. Balls of this kind belong beside jugged hare, stewed veal, mock turtle soup and rabbit — dishes where the cook wanted something savoury and absorbent to set off the gravy. The suet is doing structural work as well as adding richness: it holds the crumb together during cooking and bastes it from within, the same principle as a suet pudding. That lemon rind, nutmeg, parsley, thyme and marjoram appear together here is not accidental; the combination is the standard "mixed herbs and spice" seasoning of English forcemeat, and it turns up with little variation in Hannah Glasse in the eighteenth century and in Eliza Acton and Mrs Beeton a hundred years later.