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Bacon and Spinach
Line a pudding-dish with thin slices of raw bacon trimmed to one size and arranged symmetrically. Take boiled spinach ready chopped for the table, and season with butter, salt and pepper, also some boiled carrots, turnips and boiled onions. Whip up the yolk of an egg, with pepper and salt, and mix the carrots and turnips with the egg and seasoning. Arrange the squares of vegetables alternately amongst the slices of bacon, and place in a saucepan partially filled with boiling water, but not deep enough to boil over, and steam for an hour. Turn out on a flat dish and serve with a rich brown gravy.
A bacon-lined vegetable mould, steamed and turned out whole. It succeeds or fails on how dry the vegetables are before they go into the basin.
- Squeeze the spinach hardCooked spinach holds an astonishing amount of water, and any of it left in the basin will pool at the bottom and collapse the mould when you unmould it. Wring the chopped spinach in a clean towel until no more liquid comes out, then season with butter, salt and pepper.
- The pudding-dishThis suggests a deep, straight-sided pudding basin or ovenproof bowl rather than a flat baking dish. The recipe gives no size; something in the region of 1 to 1.5 quarts suits the quantities. The bacon is to be trimmed to one size and arranged symmetrically to line it.
- Bacon to useThe recipe says only 'thin slices of raw bacon'. Thin streaky rashers are the obvious choice; heavily smoked bacon will dominate the vegetables, so unsmoked pancetta in sheets or thin-cut side pork will give a milder result.
- "Squares of vegetables"Cut the boiled carrots and turnips into even dice of about half an inch. Uniform pieces are what let the mould slice cleanly rather than crumbling.
- The egg yolk is the binderOne yolk is barely enough for a full basin. For a 1.5-quart mould use two or three yolks, mixed through the diced root vegetables cold so they do not scramble.
- SteamingCover the basin tightly with buttered parchment and foil, set it on a rack or folded towel in a deep pan, and add boiling water to come halfway up the sides. Keep the water at a bare simmer and top it up as needed; a full hour at a rolling boil will drive water into the mould.
- Turning outLet the basin stand five to ten minutes off the heat before inverting. The mould firms as it settles and will hold its shape far better than if turned out immediately.
- The gravy'Rich brown gravy' here points to a proper brown sauce built on veal or beef stock rather than pan drippings. Brown sauces of this period were usually roux-based, though a well-reduced stock finished with butter will serve.
- YieldA basin of this size serves roughly four as a lunch dish, or six as a side with roast meat.
Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, was written while he was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf, and it moves between hotel cookery and plain household food. This dish belongs to the second camp: a steamed vegetable mould lined with bacon is a thoroughly English idea, related to the bacon-lined puddings and the aspics and moulded entrées that filled Victorian menus, where turning something out whole and intact was part of the point of the dish. Steaming in a covered basin over water was a common way to cook such things, and the egg yolk does the same job as the gelatin in a cold mould. The instruction to arrange the bacon "symmetrically" suggests that the appearance on the flat dish mattered as much as the eating.