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Veal and Ham Macaroni, or Richlieu
609. Boil three ounces of macaroni tender, beat up two eggs, then fill up a pint basin, or melon-shaped mound, with nicely-flavoured minced veal and ham, a little grated lemon peel; mix well, and boil five minutes. Serve with good gravy in the dish.
A Victorian moulded entr\ffe of the thrifty sort: cooked macaroni and minced meat bound with egg, turned out of a pint basin and sauced. The written cooking time is the one thing that needs rethinking.
- The five minutes will not doA pint mould of egg-bound meat and macaroni will need to be steamed or boiled, covered, for something closer to 45 minutes to an hour before the egg sets and the centre is hot through. Five minutes will only warm the outside.
- Which veal and ham"Nicely-flavoured minced veal and ham" most likely means cold cooked veal and ham from an earlier meal, chopped fine and already seasoned, though the recipe does not say so. If you start from raw minced veal, the mould must still reach 74C/165F at the centre.
- Macaroni of the periodMid-Victorian macaroni came as long thick tubes, sold loose and broken into lengths. Three ounces is about 85 g dry, roughly a scant cup of modern short macaroni, which boils tender in 8-10 minutes rather than the 20 or more the old imported pasta wanted.
- Lining, not mixingThe mould -- The "melon-shaped mound" is a fluted or ribbed pudding mould. The recipe as written has everything mixed together; a handsomer version lines the buttered mould with the boiled macaroni in rings or a spiral and packs the minced meat inside, so the turned-out shape shows the pasta pattern.
- The eggsTwo beaten eggs are the whole binding for the 3 oz of macaroni and however much mince fills the basin; the recipe gives no figure, but something like three-quarters of a pound. Beat them into the mixture off the heat, or they will scramble in streaks before the mould is filled.
- Butter and coverButter the basin generously and tie or clamp a lid of buttered paper or foil over the top so condensed steam cannot get in and make the mixture sodden. Stand it in water reaching halfway up, and let it settle 5 minutes before turning out.
- Lemon peelGrated lemon peel with veal is a standard Victorian pairing and does real work against the richness of the ham. Use the zest only, about half a lemon's worth for this quantity.
- The gravy"Good gravy in the dish" means a well-reduced brown veal or beef gravy poured around the turned-out mould, not over it, so the shape stays visible. Allow about 150 ml.
- YieldA pint mould serves two generously or three as part of a larger meal.
The name is the giveaway: à la Richelieu was one of the stock French garnish-names that English cookery borrowed wholesale in the nineteenth century, generally traced to the eighteenth-century Duc de Richelieu, marshal of France and a descendant of the cardinal's family, whose name was attached to a range of dishes by Parisian cooks long after his death. By the time it reached a compilation like The British Cookery Book, published in 1859 under the editorship of J. H. Walsh, the label carried prestige rather than any fixed meaning; here it dresses up a genuinely domestic dish, a way of turning the cold remains of a veal roast and the end of a ham into something that could be sent to table in a shape. Macaroni was still a slightly modish imported ingredient in mid-century Britain, more often met in sweet puddings or baked with cheese than as a lining for a savoury mould, and the combination of veal, ham and lemon peel is pure English kitchen practice underneath the French name.