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Cold Mutton Timbale
Take 1/2 pound of cooked mutton, 2 tablespoonfuls of fresh white crumbs, I raw egg, and I extra yolk, 2 teaspoonfuls of chopped parsley, 2 teaspoonfuls of chopped shallot, ½ ounce of butter, about 1/2 gill of strong stock, salt, pepper and 3 ounces of boiled macaroni. Thickly butter a plain round tin. Cut the macaroni into 3 rings.
Press these firmly into the butter on the tin so that it is evenly lined with rings of macaroni.
Mix the minced mutton with the crumbs and parsley. Melt the half ounce of butter and fry the chopped shallot in it till a pale brown; then strain it out and add it to the meat. Beat up the whole egg and yolk, mix them with the stock and strain them into the other ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Season carefully and gently pour the stiff mixture into the tin, taking care it does not disturb the macaroni. Press the mixture well down. Cover the tin with greased paper and steam it gently for an hour. Turn out the mold on a hot dish and pour any good sauce around it.
A leftovers dish dressed up in a mold, and it stands or falls on the lining: the macaroni has to be pressed into a thick coat of butter so it stays put when the meat mixture goes in. Everything else is straightforward mincing and steaming.
- The macaroni is the hingeButter the tin heavily — almost a smear rather than a film — and set the macaroni rings into it while the butter is cold and tacky so they hold. Pour the meat mixture in slowly against the side of the tin, not into the centre, or the rings will slide and the pattern is lost.
- "Cut the macaroni into 3 rings"Macaroni in this period was generally sold as long hollow tubes rather than short elbows, and the instruction most likely means cutting lengths and coiling them into rings to line the mold, though the wording is ambiguous. Modern short elbows will not coil; bucatini, long ziti or perciatelli, boiled until just pliable, will.
- Half a gillA gill is a quarter-pint, so half a gill is about 2 fl oz by American measure and about 2 1/2 fl oz by British — call it 1/4 cup, a little over if the book is British. The mixture should be stiff, so add the liquid gradually and stop when the meat just binds.
- "Strong stock"This means a well-reduced homemade stock rather than a thin broth. Reduce good beef or lamb stock until it is concentrated but still measures the half gill the recipe calls for; watery stock will make the timbale loose and bland.
- The shallot instructionThe recipe has you fry the chopped shallot in the butter, then strain the shallot out and add it to the meat, which leaves the butter behind. You may prefer to add the browned butter as well, though the cooked mutton and the egg yolk already supply some fat.
- MuttonGenuine mutton is rare outside halal and specialist butchers. Leftover roast leg or shoulder of lamb behaves the same way here. Mince it finely by hand or pulse it in a processor; do not run it to a paste, as the timbale wants some texture.
- Steaming and donenessCover with buttered paper or foil, set the tin in a covered pan on a rack with water reaching partway up, and keep the water at a bare simmer for an hour. It is set when the centre reaches 160F and a skewer comes out clean.
- "Cold" in the titleIt refers to the cold cooked meat you start with, not the way it is served — the finished mold is turned out onto a hot dish and sauced hot. A tomato sauce or a brown gravy made from the same stock suits it.
- YieldA 1-pint mold, which serves two as a main course with a vegetable, or three to four as a light first course.
Timbale is French for a drum or kettledrum — the word is generally traced back through Spanish to Arabic al-tabl, a drum — and it named the tall straight-sided mold long before it named the food cooked in one. By the late nineteenth century the timbale was a standard trick of professional and then domestic cookery: a bound forcemeat steamed in a lined mold, turned out and sauced, so that a modest amount of meat arrived at table looking like a made dish. Mutton was a cheap joint of the British table, and cold mutton the inevitable Monday problem; a mold, a macaroni lining and a sauce turned the remains of Sunday's roast into something a household could serve without apology.