Sippets of Toast

This is the tail end of a longer entry — the ingredient list and quantities have been lost in the setting, and one line breaks off mid-sentence ("lemon peel, and" almost certainly continued "a blade of mace"). The method is still clear enough to work from, but you are reconstructing proportions yourself.

• What the dish actually isMinced cooked veal reheated in stock and dressed with oysters, bordered with toast. The heading "Sippets of Toast" appears to belong to the garnish rather than to the dish; the original heading was probably something on the lines of minced veal with oysters, though the fragment gives no way of knowing.
• Working proportionsNone are printed, so these are guesses to start from. For four: about 1 lb cooked veal, minced, moistened with roughly 1/2 pint (about 1 1/4 cups) veal or light chicken stock — enough to bind, not to swim. A dozen oysters in the centre is a reasonable allowance.
• The veal must already be cookedThis is a made-over dish for the remains of a roast or a braised knuckle. Raw minced veal will not come right in stock alone; it needs proper cooking, and the texture will be quite different.
• KetchupIn a book of this date "ketchup" means mushroom or walnut ketchup — thin, dark, salty, closer to Worcestershire than to tomato sauce. A tablespoon of mushroom ketchup is the intended flavour; Worcestershire is the nearest supermarket substitute.
• Cayenne sauce and maceCayenne sauce is a bottled pepper sauce; a few drops is the scale, not a spoonful. The mace is a whole blade, put in to infuse and fished out before serving — ground mace cannot be removed and will cloud the mince.
• Scald the oysters, do not cook themBring the strained oyster liquor barely to a simmer, drop the oysters in for about a minute until the edges just ruffle, and lift them out. Prolonged cooking toughens them.
• "Taking off the beards"The dark frill of gill tissue at the edge, trimmed with scissors or fingers. Shop-shucked oysters are usually left whole, so trim them yourself; strain the liquor through muslin for grit.
• SippetsSmall neat triangles or fingers of toasted or fried bread, arranged point-outward round the rim. Cut them after toasting so the edges stay sharp, and set them on at the last moment or they soften in the steam.
• Serve on a hot dishThe instruction is not decoration. A cool platter dulls the stock into greasiness and chills the oysters; warm the dish thoroughly before the mince goes on.