Marbled Meat
I good sized chicken (five 6 mushrooms pounds) 6 sheeps' tongues 2 hard boiled eggs 1 pound of ham or bacon 1/4 teaspoonful of mace 2 tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley ½ teaspoonful of cloves 1 tablespoonful of onion juice Salt and pepper Clean the chicken and take all the meat from the bones. Cover the sheeps' tongues with cold water, and boil gently for two hours; then skin and cut them into thin slices, Chop the ham or bacon; cut the hard boiled eggs into slices; grease a mould (with a cover), put in a layer of chicken, then a layer of sheeps' tongues, then a layer of ham, then a layer of hard boiled eggs sliced, then a sprinkling of the mushrooms chopped fine, parsley, cloves, mace, salt, pepper and a few drops of the onion juice, then another layer of chicken, and continue these alternations until all is used. Press well together, cover the mould, stand it in a pot of boiling water, and boil two hours. Do not have the water deep enough to cover the mould. done, remove the lid and stand away to cool. Then turn When it out of the mould, and garnish with aspic jelly or parsley and slices of lemon.
A pressed, layered cold meat loaf in the galantine family, steamed in a covered mould and turned out for slicing. The typesetting of the ingredient column has scrambled in transcription, so read the method for the real quantities.
- The garbled ingredient listThe column has run together: it is one chicken of about five pounds, six mushrooms, six sheep's tongues, two hard-boiled eggs and a pound of ham or bacon. The "five 6 mushrooms pounds" line appears to be two entries collided.
- Sheep's tonguesLamb or sheep tongues are a butcher or halal-market order, sold fresh or salted; six weigh roughly two pounds. One trimmed ox tongue, simmered until tender and skinned, slices to much the same effect and is easier to find. Skin them while still warm or the membrane will not lift.
- The mouldA "mould with a cover" is a lidded pudding basin or a metal charlotte mould with a lid; a terrine or a loaf tin with foil crimped tightly over it will serve. Grease it well and pack the layers hard, pressing out air pockets as you go, or the loaf will crumble when turned out.
- Go easy on the clovesA teaspoon and a half of cloves against something like six pounds of meat is a heavy Victorian hand; if you are using ground cloves, a half teaspoon is closer to modern taste, and the quarter teaspoon of mace can stay as written.
- Onion juiceGrate an onion on the fine side of a box grater and squeeze the pulp in a cloth. It gives onion flavour without wet shreds that would break the set.
- The water bathKeep the water at a bare simmer partway up the sides of the mould, not covering it, and top it up as it evaporates. Two hours is right for a mould this size; check that the centre has reached 165F, since the chicken and ham go in raw.
- Press it as it coolsThe recipe only says to remove the lid and stand the mould away to cool, but a plate and a two-pound weight on the surface, and a chill overnight before unmoulding, will help it slice cleanly.
- Yield and servingA mould this size feeds ten to twelve as a cold course. Cut in thin slices with a long knife wiped between cuts, and serve with the aspic, parsley and lemon as directed, or with mustard and pickles.
This kind of pressed meat mould belongs to the era before domestic refrigeration, when the summer problem was cooking once and eating cold for several days. Marbled meat sits alongside galantine and English brawn: mixed meats layered in a mould, cooked in a water bath, and turned out so the cut face shows a mosaic of pale chicken, dark tongue and pink ham with discs of egg -- presumably the pattern the name refers to. Sheep's tongues were inexpensive offal, and tongue holds its shape and colour under pressing better than most muscle. An aspic glaze is often said to have helped seal the cut surfaces against the air as well as to decorate.