Meat Recipes

Faggots or Savoury Ducks Fish Paste
Hash Meat Paste
Jellied Rabbit Pork Pie
Toad in the Hole


FAGGOTS OR SAVOURY DUCKS:

Someone asked about Faggots, also known as Savoury Ducks. This recipe, enjoyed all over Yorkshire, is yet another example of how ingenious women, forced by chronic poverty to buy the cheapest of foods, were able to create tasty and nourishing dishes to sustain our ancestors, without whom we would not be here to argue about things today. You will notice this recipe calls for a pig's caul. Don't ask. Make the faggots without it.

1 lb. pig's liver
2 medium onions
4 oz. fat pork
Pinch of thyme
Generous 1/2 teaspoon powdered sage
Pinch of basil
Salt and pepper
Pinch grated nutmeg
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
Pig's caul
 
Slice the liver, onions and pork thinly. Put in a saucepan with the thyme, sage, basil, salt, pepper and nutmeg and barely cover with water.
Simmer for 1/2 hour, then strain off the liquid and save for the gravy.
Mince the contents of the stewpan finely.
Add the beaten egg and sufficient breadcrumbs to make into a fairly firm mixture and mix thoroughly.
Form into balls and enclose each one in a piece of caul.
Place in baking tin, and add a little gravy.
Bake at 400 until nicely browned.
Serve with a good thickened gravy.
If preferred, the mixture can be pressed into a well greased baking tin and marked into squares. Cover with caul and cut into squares after cooking.
6 servings.



A delicious HASH from Bradford:

1 lb cooked beef or mutton
1 small carrot
1/2 small turnip
1 scant tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon Yorkshire relish or similar sauce
1 small onion
1/2 teacup mushroom ketchup - or purried mushrooms
seasoning
1 bunch mixed herbs, parsley, thyme and a bayleaf
 
Slice meat thinly.
Using a pint of water make a stock (with either bones or a stock cube) add vegetables and herbs and cook until tender.
Melt some fat or oil.
Peel and chop onion and fry until brown.
Stir in flour gradually.
Keep stirring and add the mushroom ketchup, sauce and seasoning.
Add the strained stock a little at a time and stirring well. Put in meat slices and heat thoroughly.
 

(My mum used to make this but she always added sliced uncooked potatoes on to the top and cooked until the potatoes were tender and browned)


How about this one? --Ann.

JELLIED RABBIT:

1 rabbit - jointed
1 cow heel
1 onion (if desired)
Put in large basin and steam until meat drops off the bones easily.
It may take 3 or 4 hours.
Remove bones, add salt to the meat and liquid and pour into mould or pudding dish.
Leave 12 hours to set.

From: Mrs. Butterfield. Ossett (Leeds)
Our grandparents seemed to have much more time to cook than we do. I
bet many a rabbit was poached for the above recipe, don't you?


 

FISH & MEAT PASTE

Fish & meat when pounded & mixed with other ingredients & flavourings give a smooth paste which is good for sandwich fillings, canape spreads etc. Many commercially made brands are sold so these may be stored unopened for some time as they contain preservatives (YES!). Delicious fish & meat pastes may also be made at home, but these should be prepared as required & used up within a day or two.

HOME MADE FISH PASTE:

1/2 lb cooked fish
1 oz flour
2-3 ozs melted butter
1 teasp. anchovy essence
1 teasp. vinegar
cayenne pepper & salt
pinch of ground mace
 
Free the fish from skin & bone, then put in a strong basin with most of the butter & the seasonings.
Pound the mixture well until it's smooth, then rub it through a sieve.
Pack it into small jars & run the remainder of the melted butter over the top to exclude the air. Keep very cool & use within 2-3 days.


LIVER PASTE OR PATE:

3/4 lb liver
1 oz plain flour
1 oz dripping
1 sliced onion
1/2 pint of stock or water
salt & pepper
a bouquet garni
a little melted butter
 
Cut the liver into slices, removing the pipes (OH YES), & coat with flour.
Melt the dripping in a saucepan or casserole & fry the liver lightly.
Add the onion, saute for a few minutes, then stir in the remaining flour.
Add the stock & seasonings & bring to boil, add bouquet garni tied in muslin, cover & simmer gently until very tender (3/4 to 1 hour).
Remove the bag of herbs, lift the liver from the sauce & pass it through a fine mincer, then sieve.
Add more seasonings if necessary, with enough of the gravy to make a soft paste consistency.
Pack into small pots, cover at once with a little melted butter & leave to cool.
Keep in a cold place & use within 2-3 days.
Serve with freshly made toast & fresh butter, this makes an excellent hors d'oeuvre & it's very good as a sandwich spread, combined with watercress or sliced cucumber.
 


 

This recipe for pork pie came from my Great-Aunt Mary's collection and was taken from a booklet of Yorkshire recipes published in the 1920s (guessing from the adverts)

PORK PIE: -from Ann Newman

3/4 lb/3 US cups flour
5oz/1-1.4 US cups lard
3/4 teaspoon salt
Abt 1/4 pint/5 fl. ozs. water or milk and water mixed
 
Boil lard with water then stir into flour gradually and knead to a smooth light paste, cut off about 1/4 of it and set to keep warm.
 
Make the remainder into a ball, then gradually work out the centre, getting the sides as high as possible up the sides of a tin with a loose bottom, then fill with pie-meat and wet the inside of the upper edge of the case. Roll out the remainder (make a hole in the middle) and cover pie, press edges together and pinch them all round.
 
Decorate the top with shapes of pastry. Brush over with beaten egg and bake 1-1/2 hours.
Before quite cold fill up with seasoned gravy.
 
Filling for pie
1-1/2 lb pork
1 tablespoon water
1/2 oz salt
1/4 oz pepper
Cut the meat up finely and mix well with seasoning and water. 1/2
teaspoonful sage may be added if liked.
It was fine when I made it!
 

TOAD IN THE HOLE

Eileen was asking about toad in the hole. Indeed, that is what you call piggies in a blanket, Eileen. (In the US pigs in blankets means hot dogs wrapped in pastry). For this you'll need traditional British style "bangers" available at British specialty stores - or use some good sage-flavoured sausage, like Jimmy Dean's, links if possible. Our working-class sausages are called "bangers" because they often explode nicely when well cooked. (You can defuse bangers by pricking them with a fork.)

TOAD IN THE HOLE:

1 lb. bangers or similar
Yorkshire pudding batter
1 oz./2 tablesp. dripping or lard
Good gravy
 
Make batter, let stand for 1 hour.
Heat oven to 425. Heat dripping or lard in a Yorkshire pudding [lasagne] tin until just smoking.
Put the sausages in the tin, bake about 5 minutes.
Pour in all the batter, lovely suet puddings though!

(It doesn't say let stand in fridge because our houses were bloody cold back then. However, I would strongly recommend putting your batter in the fridge, otherwise the milk and egg might spoil.)