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Pork Forcemeat with Bacon
Cut into slices a pound each of lean pork and lean bacon and place them in a stewpan with enough water to prevent the meat from sticking to the bottom of the pan, add a couple of ounces of butter, a teaspoonful of pepper and one onion cut into small pieces; cover over the pan and put it on the fire, letting it simmer gently until the meat is quite tender, then remove from the fire and mince very fine. Pour into the pan with the gravy a breakfast cupful of milk and add a little mace, herbs, salt and pepper to taste, together with six well-beaten eggs, stir thoroughly and add the meat. Line a circular tin dish with light paste and pour in the mixture, cover over with a lid of the paste, making a hole in the top and bake until done in a moderate oven. After it has become cold, turn out onto a dish, and serve.
This is a cold pork pie in the pâté en croûte tradition: the meat is braised and minced, bound with an egg-and-milk custard, then baked in pastry and turned out once set. The hinge is the custard — it must set gently and fully, and the pie must be thoroughly cold before you attempt to unmould it.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup, generally reckoned at 8–10 fl oz; 1 cup of milk is a safe reading. Combined with the braising liquid and six eggs this gives a soft custard, so err on the smaller side if your pan holds much gravy.
- Moderate ovenUsually reckoned at around 350°F. The recipe gives no dish size or time; for a deep pie of 8 or 9 inches allow roughly 1 to 1½ hours, and judge by the custard: a knife slid through the steam hole should come out clean, or the centre read about 160°F.
- Light pasteMost likely a short, butter-based crust rather than a hot-water raised paste, though the term is not precise. It has to be sturdy enough to unmould, so roll it a little thicker than for a fruit tart and use a straight-sided tin with a removable base or a springform.
- The steam holeNot decorative. Egg custard baked inside sealed pastry will puff, weep and lift the lid off; the vent lets steam escape so the filling sets level.
- Bacon and saltModern bacon is generally cured wet and often sweetened, which changes how it seasons the mixture. Season the custard lightly and taste the minced meat before you add any salt at all.
- Mincing"Mince very fine" was knife or hand-grinder work. A food processor does it in seconds but turns pork to paste if left running — pulse to a coarse, distinct texture, or grind through a medium plate.
- Braising the meatBarely cover with water and simmer gently, 45–60 minutes, until a fork goes in easily. Keep every drop of the liquid; it carries most of the flavour into the custard.
- HerbsUnspecified in the recipe. Thyme, parsley and a bay leaf in the braise, with a little more thyme in the custard, sits comfortably with the mace.
- Serving and yieldChill several hours, preferably overnight, before turning out — warm it will collapse. Cut in wedges as a cold luncheon or buffet dish; a 9-inch pie serves eight to ten.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maître d'hôtel, published his Cook Book in 1896, and its meat chapters lean heavily on the French larder repertoire that a large hotel kitchen ran on: terrines, galantines and pies made in quantity, cooled, and sliced to order for cold service. This one sits between two traditions — the English raised pork pie and the French pâté en croûte — and belongs to the older sense of "forcemeat," from the French farce, meaning simply a seasoned minced-meat mixture rather than something used only as stuffing. Mace, the outer sheath of the nutmeg, is the spice that flavours the forcemeat here. Dishes like this earned their place in a hotel kitchen because they improved on standing: made a day ahead, they went out cold with no last-minute work at all.