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Calf's Head Jelly, or Chicken, or Veal
564. Put to a head, nicely soaked, as much water as will cover it, with salt, herbs, vegetables, horseradish, celery, and black peppercorns, sufficient to make it savoury, Let it simmer until quite tender, take out the head, remove the bones, and return them to the stewpan, with any part you like to cut off. Let the jelly boil until stiff. Strain, and let it stand till next day. Take off the fat and sediment, and melt the clear part, adding a glass of sherry. Cut the meat in small pieces, with some ham or tongue. Season with powdered mace, cayenne pepper, and salt. Place slices of hard-boiled eggs round a pie-dish or mould, lay in the meat as lightly as possible, adding the jelly, a little warm, by degrees, until the dish is full. Let it stand until set, then turn it out, and garnish with lemon.
This is a moulded aspic — a savoury jelly set from the natural gelatine of a calf's head, with meat, ham and egg suspended in it. The whole thing hinges on the stock being reduced far enough to set firm without any added gelatine.
- Sourcing the headA whole split calf's head is a special order from a butcher and rarely stocked. The title allows chicken or veal instead: about 4 lb of veal knuckle and shin, or a whole chicken plus two split pig's or veal trotters, gives comparable body.
- "Nicely soaked"Means several hours in cold water, changed once or twice, to draw out blood before cooking. Skip it and the jelly clouds and tastes muddy.
- "Boil until stiff"Not a rolling boil but a steady reduction of the liquor with the bones returned to it until a spoonful chilled on a saucer sets firm within a few minutes; the straining comes after. This is the test that matters; if it stays syrupy, keep reducing.
- Simmering timeThe recipe gives none. A head may take anywhere from about 2 to 4 hours to become tender; veal shin much the same; a chicken 1 1/2 to 2 hours, after which the carcass goes back in for another hour or two for the stock.
- A glass of sherryIn this period roughly 2 to 3 fl oz. Add it to the melted jelly off the heat, since long boiling drives off the aroma you added it for.
- ClarifyingChilling overnight lets you lift the fat cap off cleanly and leave the sediment behind. If the melted jelly is still cloudy, an egg-white raft will clear it, though for a rustic moulded dish clarity is optional.
- Filling the mould"A little warm" means barely liquid, not hot — hot jelly will slide the egg slices off the sides. Add it in stages so the meat stays evenly distributed rather than packing into the base.
- Chilling and keepingSet in the refrigerator, not a cool larder, and count on 6 to 8 hours. Because it is set with meat, egg and no acid, treat it as a fresh dish and eat within two or three days.
- YieldA 1 1/2 to 2 pint mould serves six to eight as a cold lunch or supper dish, cut in slices with mustard, pickles or a sharp salad.
Calf's head was one of the great Victorian economy joints — cheap, gelatinous, and capable of being turned into mock turtle soup, brawn, or a moulded jelly like this one. Recipes of this kind sit at the point where the medieval brawn tradition, in which chopped head meat was pressed in its own set liquor, met the nineteenth-century fashion for elaborate aspics turned out of decorative moulds and lined with sliced egg. The alternative headings for chicken or veal show the book adapting an old thrift dish for households that no longer wanted to deal with a head, and the sherry, mace, cayenne, ham and tongue are the standard Victorian seasoning kit for cold meat, which was expected to be assertively flavoured because chilling flattens the taste. The British Cookery Book, compiled in the middle of the century under the editorship of J. H. Walsh, gathered such recipes from contributed and printed sources, which accounts for the brisk, note-like style here.