A Sefton, or Veal Custard

Ingredients

• 1 pint veal gravy
• 6 eggs
• 1 lemon
• cayenne
• salt
• 1/4 teaspoonful pounded mace
• 2 oz clarified butter
• paste
• mushroom buttons

Instructions

1. Pour boiling, a pint of rich, clear, pale veal gravy on six fresh eggs, which have been well beaten and strained.
2. Sprinkle in directly the grated rind of a fine lemon, a little cayenne, some salt if needed, and a quarter-teaspoonful of mace.
3. Put a paste border round a dish, pour in, first two ounces of clarified butter, and then the other ingredients.
4. Bake the Sefton in a very slow oven from twenty-five to thirty minutes, or until it is quite firm in the middle, and send it to table with a little good gravy.
5. Very highly flavoured game stock, in which a few mushrooms have been stewed, may be used for this dish with great advantage in lieu of veal gravy; and a sauce made of the smallest mushroom buttons may be served with it in either case.
6. The mixture can be baked in a whole paste, if preferred so, or in well buttered cups; then turned out and covered with the sauce before it is sent to table.
7. Proportions: Rich veal or game stock, 1 pint; fresh eggs, 6; rind, 1 lemon; little salt and cayenne; pounded mace, 1/4 teaspoonful; butter, 2 oz.: baked, 25 to 30 minutes, slow oven.