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Ornamental Icing (Follows Take a quarter)
follows: Take a quarter of a pound of lard for every pound of flour, add half a pint of water, also a pinch of salt; to make it, add the lard to the water, bring it to a boil, then add it to the flour and mix as quickly as possible; when mixed wrap it up in a cloth to keep warm. Make into the shape or shapes selected as quickly as possible , as when it gets cold it hardens; when cold it will retain any shape given it while warm. You can use pie-molds, in which case simply line the mold with the paste, when the pie is made it is well to allow it to stand all night if possible, to get fully fixed before baking. Before adding any leaves or other paste decorations wash it with yolk of eggs, then add the paste leaves, and do not wash them. The pie will then bake a rich brown, while the leaves remain a pale color, giving a pretty effect. A very nice meat for filling is made as follows: Bone two calves' feet; chop fine boiled chitterlings; cut up and stew over a gentle fire for an hour two chickens, and two sweet breads, in a quart of veal gravy; season with cayenne pepper and salt; then add six or eight force-meat balls (that have been boiled); four boiled eggs quartered; and, when stewed enough, let stand until nearly cold, and place it in pie, cover with aspic jelly, and ornament as above directed. In case you do not wish to use the butter-lamb and aspic jelly, after filling in meat, place four quarters of a hardboiled egg at equal distances apart on the top of the meat, and strew a few cold green peas or asparagus tops on it. This gives a pretty effect, and saves the trouble of making the aspic jelly. The shell may be filled with any cooked cold meat. Rabbits make a nice filling, stewed with a nice cut or two of ham or salt pork. Make a force-meat out of the livers beaten in a mortar until fine, adding freely of pepper and salt, a little nutmeg, and a few sweet herbs. Partridges, or any game birds, may be used, bearing in mind that the pie is always to be served cold.
Despite the section heading, this is a hot-water crust for a raised cold meat pie, with a filling and two schemes of decoration. The paste is worked warm and shaped by hand or in a mold, which is the whole trick.
- Work it hot, and fastThe lard-and-water paste is pliable only while warm; once it cools it sets rigid and will crack rather than bend. Keep the bowl covered with a cloth in a warm place and shape or line the mold in one go, returning nothing to the heat.
- The proportionsA quarter pound of lard is about 115 g and half a pint about 1 cup (8 fl oz) per pound (450 g) of flour. That is a wetter, leaner paste than most modern hot-water crust formulas, which run closer to equal weights of fat and water; expect a soft dough that firms considerably as it cools, and hold back a little of the water if it will not take it.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given in the recipe. Raised pies of this kind are usually started hot, around 400-425F, to set the walls, then finished at 325-350F for the hour or more the thickness requires.
- That overnight restThe instruction to let the pie stand all night refers to letting the raised or molded case dry and set firm before baking. Do not leave a meat-filled pie standing at room temperature overnight; chill the shaped case in the refrigerator, and keep the cooked filling cold and separate until it goes in.
- Chitterlings and sweetbreadsChitterlings are pig intestines and require thorough cleaning and long boiling before they are chopped for the filling; boil them until fully tender. Sweetbreads (thymus or pancreas, usually veal) need soaking in cold water, then blanching and trimming of membrane before the hour's stew.
- Calves' feet and the aspicThe boned feet are there for gelatin as much as meat, and the same collagen is what the separately made aspic jelly supplies. A quart of veal gravy means veal stock reduced and seasoned; a modern strong veal or chicken stock, clarified and set with a little added gelatin, does the same work.
- Force-meat ballsThese are seasoned ground-meat dumplings, poached before they go into the pie. For the rabbit or game version the book has you pound the livers in a mortar with pepper, salt, nutmeg and herbs; a food processor gives the same fine paste.
- The egg-wash effectBrush the case with yolk, then lay on the pastry leaves unwashed. The washed surface browns deeply while the leaves stay pale, which is the entire point of the decoration and is lost if you glaze the whole thing.
- ServingA raised pie on this scale would serve roughly eight to twelve as a cold course, though the recipe gives a ratio rather than a fixed quantity. It is meant to be served cold and cut in wedges, and should be refrigerated once cool and eaten within two or three days.
Hot-water crust is often said to be among the oldest surviving pastry techniques in English cookery: a paste stiff enough to stand on its own as a container, raised by hand around a wooden block or pressed into a hinged mold, so that a pie could be transported, kept and carved cold. By the nineteenth century these "raised pies" belonged to the cold collation and the sideboard buffet, and the recipe's fussy ornament -- pastry leaves in two shades, quartered eggs set at equal distances, green peas strewn on aspic, the butter-lamb it offers to spare you -- is squarely in the decorative tradition of Victorian party catering. The filling reflects a household that used the whole animal: calves' feet for their gelatin, chitterlings, sweetbreads and pounded livers all appear as a matter of course, and rabbit, partridge or "any game birds" are treated as ordinary alternatives. The section heading, oddly, reads "Ornamental Icing."