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Veal Pot Pie, Hongroise
Cut into inch-square pieces three and a half pounds shoulder of veal, place on a plate, season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon paprika and saltspoon ground thyme; repeatedly turn the pieces in the seasoning; heat two tablespoons lard in a large saucepan, add the veal and briskly brown for ten minutes. Add a bean sound garlic, one carrot and one white turnip, cut into quarter-inch squares, and twelve very small white onions previously lightly browned in a little butter; let brown for ten minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile, besprinkle with two tablespoons flour; stir a little, moisten with a pint water and a pint pure tomato juice. Tie together two leeks, two branches celery, two branches parsley and two bay leaves and add to the stew. Cut two medium, washed and peeled potatoes into half-inch-square pieces and also add to the stew; lightly mix, cover the pan and set in the oven for fifty minutes; remove, take up the herbs, skim the fat from the surface. Cut an ounce lean, raw bacon into thin squares and fry in a pan with a teaspoon lard to a nice brown; drain and add to the veal; lightly mix. Transfer the veal into a large baking dish, sprinkle a teaspoon freshly chopped parsley over, roll out very thin a half-pound pie paste, lightly egg the edges of the dish, arrange the paste over and press down with the fingers around the edges; trim well, make a few incisions with a knife in the centre, lightly egg the surface, set in the oven to bake for twenty minutes, remove and serve.
A two-stage dish: a paprika-scented veal braise finished under a pastry lid. The original assumes you know your own oven, so the numbers below fill in the gaps.
- Oven temperaturesThe original gives no temperature for either stage, only times. For the fifty-minute braise a moderate oven of roughly 325-350F, pan covered so the liquid barely trembles, will suit; for the twenty-minute pastry bake something hotter, around 425-450F, or the crust stays pale and soft on top of a filling that is already hot. Both figures are modern estimates, not the book's.
- Saltspoon and other small measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. "A bean sound garlic" means one sound clove roughly the size of a bean, not a whole head.
- Pure tomato juiceThis is unseasoned strained tomato, closer to passata than to the salted, celery-flavoured breakfast juice sold today. Use plain tomato passata or canned whole tomatoes blitzed and sieved, and check the salt at the end.
- Cool the filling before the crust goes onCool the filling a little before the crust goes on -- skim the fat properly and let the stew stop steaming hard before laying the pastry over, or the underside can go pasty and the lid sink into the gravy. Note that the original goes straight from skimming to crust, so this is a precaution rather than the book's instruction.
- Pie pasteHalf a pound of shortcrust, rolled very thin, covers a dish serving six. Ready-made all-butter shortcrust works; puff will rise higher but give you less of the sturdy lid the recipe intends.
- The raw baconAn ounce of lean raw bacon fried separately is a seasoning, not a component. Modern streaky bacon is fattier and saltier than the lean cured pork meant here, so cut the added salt slightly if you use it.
- Shoulder of vealVeal shoulder is a special-order item in most places. Boneless veal breast or shank meat behaves the same way; well-marbled pork shoulder is the closest everyday substitute, though it will taste sweeter.
- YieldThree and a half pounds of meat plus vegetables and crust serves six generously, or eight with bread and a salad.
"Hongroise" is French kitchen shorthand for Hungarian, and in the classical repertoire it points above all to paprika, usually with onion and often with a tomato or soured-cream element. The recipe comes from Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906). The technique is entirely French (brown the meat, singe with flour, moisten, add a tied bundle of herbs, finish in the oven), while the national label rests on half a teaspoon of paprika and a handful of small onions. Capping the stew with a pastry lid, on the other hand, is Anglo-American pot pie practice.