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Curried Game Sandwich
Use any chopped, cooked game, stretched out with veal or chicken, if necessary; 2 parts of game, or game and tame, combined with 1/2 as much ham and 2 or 3 anchovies.
Chop, or run through grinder, season well with extra hot curry powder, heat in butter with a little lemon juice or white wine. Spread thick on buttered toast and grate Parmesan cheese over all.
Chutney, Tap Sauce, or pulverized dill flowers can take the place of the powdered cheese.
A pounded, curried potted-meat spread built to use up cold roast game, finished under cheese on toast. The proportions are given by ratio rather than weight, so scale to whatever leftovers you have.
- Read the ratioTwo parts game (or game padded out with veal or chicken) to one part ham — "1/2 as much" means half the weight of the meat mixture. For a workable batch, 8 oz total meat, 4 oz ham, and 2 to 3 oil-packed anchovy fillets.
- "Game and tame"Period shorthand for wild meat combined with domestic. Venison, duck, rabbit or pheasant all work; the veal or chicken is there to soften a strong, dry wild flavour and add moisture, not for its own sake.
- Cooked meat onlyThis is a use-up dish for meat already roasted or braised through. Warming a spread in butter for a few minutes will not bring raw or underdone game to a safe temperature.
- Anchovies do the saltingThey are the seasoning, not a flavour note — expect them to carry most of the salt. Season with salt only after tasting the heated mixture, since ham and Parmesan add more.
- "Extra hot curry powder"Commercial curry powders of the period ranged from mild to fierce. Start with about 1 teaspoon per pound of meat, bloom it in the butter for 30 seconds before the meat goes in, and add more to taste; adding a pinch of cayenne is closer to the intent than doubling the powder.
- Keep it moistLean game turns to sawdust when reheated. Use a generous knob of butter and a tablespoon or two of white wine or lemon juice per cup of meat, and take it off the heat as soon as it is hot through — the mixture should be spreadable, not dry and crumbly.
- Grinder textureA food processor pulsed in short bursts is closer to the old grinder than a continuous run, which will turn the mixture into paste. Aim for a coarse mince that still shows the meat.
- The cheese finishGrated Parmesan over the hot spread will soften but not brown on its own. The recipe asks for nothing more than grating it over the top; a minute under a hot broiler would give a crust, but that is an addition rather than something the text calls for. The chutney or pulverized dill flowers simply take the cheese's place.
- YieldThe quantities above should fill roughly half a dozen open sandwiches on toast, depending on how thick they are spread.