Hodge - Podge
INGREDIENTS for soup for 12 persons.-2 lbs. of shin of beef, 3 quarts of water, 1 pint of table-beer, 2 HONEY CAKE. onions, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 1 head of celery; pepper and salt to taste: thickening of butter and flour. AVERAGE COST, 2s.
Put the meat, beer and water in a stewpan; simmer for a few minutes, and skim carefully. Add the vegetables and seasoning; stew gently till the meat is tender. Thicken with the butter and flour, and serve with turnips and carrots, or spinach and celery.
TIME.-3 hours or rather more.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Hodge-Podge. (Cold Meat Cookery.) - INGREDIENTS for sufficient for 4 persons. -About 1 lb. of underdone cold mutton, 2 lettuces, 1 pint of green peas, 5 or 6 green onions, 2 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste, 1½ pint of water. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the mutton, 9d.
Mince the mutton, and cut up the lettuces and onions in slices. Put these in a stewpan, with all the ingredients except the peas, and let these simmer very gently for ¾ hour, keeping them well stirred. Boil the peas separately, mix these with the mutton, and serve very hot.
TIME. hour.
SEASONABLE from the end of May to August.
Holly-Leaves, To Frost (for Garnishing and Decorating Dessert and Supper Dishes.) - INGREDIENTS. - Sprigs of holly, oiled butter, coarsely-powder sugar.
Procure some nice sprigs of holly; pick the leaves from the stalks, and wipe them with a clean cloth free from all moisture; then place them on a dish near the fire, to get thoroughly dry, but not too near to shrivel the leaves; dip them into oiled butter, sprinkle over them some coarselypowdered sugar, and dry them before the fire. They should be kept in a dry place, as the least damp would spoil their appearance.
TIME. About 10 minutes to dry before the fire.
SEASONABLE. - These may be made at any time; but are more suitable for winter garnishes, when fresh flowers are not easily obtained.
Two versions of the same dish sit here: a long-simmered beef and beer soup, and a quick summer stew built from leftover roast mutton. Both are thrift cookery, and neither needs much beyond a heavy pan and patience.
- Table-beerA weak, lightly hopped household beer brewed for daily drinking rather than for flavour; considerably weaker than ale, though strengths varied. A mild ale or a brown ale cut half-and-half with water gives the nearest effect; a modern strong bitter or IPA will make the soup harsh.
- Shin of beefStill sold as shin or foreshank, and still the right cut: heavy in collagen, cheap, and needing the full three hours to give up its gelatine. Do not substitute a lean stewing steak, which will be dry long before the broth has body.
- Thickening of butter and flourEqual weights of soft butter and plain flour kneaded to a paste (beurre manié by the fixed amount is not given, so work with about 1 oz of each per quart of liquid). Whisk it in a small piece at a time near the end and simmer a few minutes to cook out the raw flour.
- The simmer"Simmer for a few minutes, and skim carefully" before the vegetables go in is the hinge of the soup. Bringing it up slowly and lifting the scum gives a clear, clean-tasting broth; a hard boil emulsifies the fat and the result is cloudy and greasy.
- The cold-meat versionThis is a leftovers dish and assumes the mutton is already cooked and slightly underdone. Lamb shoulder or leg works identically. Because the meat only needs heating through, the cooking time is short; the printed figure has not survived legibly (it reads '3/6 hour', with the TIME line giving 'hour'), so gentle simmering until the lettuce has collapsed is the safest reading.
- Peas cooked apartBoiling the peas separately and folding them in at the end keeps them green and sweet. Fresh podded peas need 3-5 minutes, frozen peas 2; cooked in with the lettuce and mutton they turn grey and starchy.
- Lettuce as a vegetableCos or another firm lettuce stands up to stewing; soft round lettuce dissolves. Slice it across into ribbons and expect it to wilt to a fraction of its volume.
- Costs and yield2s and 9d are pre-decimal prices of no use now beyond showing the dish was cheap. The soup is written for 12, the mutton hodge-podge for 4; the soup halves without adjustment.
- Holly for garnish onlyThe frosted holly sprigs on this page are decoration, not food. Holly leaves and berries are toxic if eaten, and the leaves should be lifted off the dish before serving.
"Hodge-podge" comes through Middle English from the Anglo-Norman hochepot, a shaken or jumbled pot, and by the sixteenth century the word is often said to have already escaped the kitchen to mean any confused mixture. In Scotland the closely related hotch-potch settled into a specific summer form: mutton or lamb broth thick with young peas, lettuce, spring onions and whatever else the garden was giving, which is essentially the second recipe here. The pairing on this page is characteristic of Mrs Beeton's method one version cooked from raw meat, and a companion filed under "Cold Meat Cookery" that turns Sunday's joint into Monday's dinner. That second category runs right through the book and reflects a household economy in which a large roast was expected to reappear, disguised, for several days; the seasonal note limiting the dish to late May through August marks the short window when fresh green peas were actually available.