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Fricandeau of Veal
Take a four-pound fillet of veal; trim to a nice shape and lard on top. Put thin slices of pork in a saucepan, lay over the pork sliced carrots, a stalk of celery, some parsley and an onion. Put the meat on top of the vegetables; sprinkle over pepper and salt. Fill the saucepan with boiling stock to cover the meat. Cover with a light lid and bake in moderate oven two hours and a half.
Baste several times.
This is a braise dressed up as a roast: the meat sits above the vegetables, half-submerged in stock, and cooks slowly under cover. The one thing that decides whether it is good is the fat you add, since a veal fillet has almost none of its own.
- "Lard on top"Larding means threading strips of firm pork fat (lardons) through the surface of the meat with a larding needle, at intervals of an inch or so. Without a needle, lay thin sheets of pork fatback or unsmoked streaky bacon over the top and tie them on. Skipping this step entirely gives dry, grainy meat.
- The cutA "fillet of veal" here is not tenderloin but a thick solid piece from the leg — what a butcher now sells as veal top round or cushion. Ask for a single 4 lb piece, tied, rather than a rolled roast.
- Thin slices of porkFresh pork belly or unsmoked fatback, sliced about 1/4 inch. Its job is to keep the meat off the metal and to enrich the stock; smoked bacon will take the dish in a different, more assertive direction.
- Moderate oven350F. The saucepan goes into the oven, lid on, so use a Dutch oven or any deep pan with an ovenproof handle.
- "A light lid"Probably a lid that is not a tight seal, so that some steam escapes and the liquid reduces as the meat cooks, and what you baste with grows progressively more concentrated. A lid set on loosely, or foil crimped only at the edges, does this.
- Stock and bastingBoiling stock keeps the pan temperature from crashing when you add it. Baste every 30 to 40 minutes; toward the end the liquid should be syrupy enough to glaze the top.
- DonenessTwo and a half hours is about right for 4 lb, but judge by feel: a skewer should meet no resistance. This is a long braise, not a roast to a pink centre, so an internal reading of 175-185F is the target rather than 145F.
- Finishing and yieldRest the meat, then strain the pan liquid, skim the fat, and reduce it to a sauce. Serves 8 to 10 with the traditional accompaniment of sorrel or spinach purée.
Fricandeau is a French kitchen term of uncertain origin, generally traced to the sixteenth or seventeenth century and used almost exclusively for a larded, braised piece of veal from the leg, glazed with its own reduced cooking liquor and classically served on a bed of sorrel. It survived into English and American cookbooks as one of the recognised "made dishes" a competent cook was expected to produce, a reflection of how much American middle-class cooking borrowed its vocabulary, if not always its technique, from French professional practice. The larding needle it assumes was standard equipment then and is a specialist tool now.