Veal Chops
Beat the chops until quite tender, and then put in a pan and slightly cover them over with water. Simmer till tender, keeping the pan well covered. When almost done season with salt and pepper. Remove from the pan, dry with a cloth, butter, and drop in beaten egg and roll well in cracker crumbs. Put on a dish, and set in the stove to brown. Serve with Hollandaise sauce
A two-stage method: the chops are braised in barely enough water to cover, then crumbed and browned dry. Read it as poach-then-bake rather than as a conventional breaded cutlet.
- The hingeDo not let the pan reach a rolling boil at any point. Veal chops held at a bare simmer, lid on, stay moist; a boil tightens the muscle and no amount of browning afterwards will fix it.
- "Beat until quite tender"This means pounding with the flat of a mallet or the back of a cleaver to break down connective tissue, not flattening to a scaloppine. Rib or loin chops about 3/4 inch thick need only light, even work on both sides.
- Simmering timeThe original gives none. Loin or rib chops are done in 20-25 minutes; shoulder chops, which have more connective tissue, want 40-45. Test by feel rather than by clock.
- Salt late, as writtenThe instruction to season "when almost done" suits a dish where the meat sits in water that will not be served. Whether or not earlier salting measurably draws juices into the liquid, there is nothing to gain by seasoning the cooking water here.
- "Butter" as a verbBrush the drained, dried chops with soft butter before the egg. The egg holds the crumbs; the butter supplies the fat that browns them in a dry oven, standing in for frying fat.
- "Set in the stove to brown"No temperature is given. A hot oven, somewhere around 400-425F, will do it; ten to fifteen minutes on a buttered dish or shallow pan, turning once, is enough for colour, since the meat is already cooked through.
- Cracker crumbsPeriod soda or water crackers, crushed fine, give a coarser coat than modern breadcrumbs, and soda crackers a saltier one. Crushed saltines are the closest match; panko is too airy for this treatment.
- YieldOne chop per person, with the Hollandaise made separately and spooned over. The cooking water is thin and only lightly seasoned; discard it or save it as a light stock base.
Veal was a standing feature of American middle-class cookery in the period when dairy herds meant a steady supply of young male calves. The method here — simmer first, crumb and brown second — belongs to the era of the coal or wood range, where a covered pan at the back of the stove could be left to its own devices while the oven was reserved for the final colouring. Pairing the result with Hollandaise reflects the reach of French service into American household books of the period: elaborate sauces from the professional repertoire were being recommended for plain home dishes, often on the assumption that a cook had time to stand over a double boiler. The instruction to beat the veal is a reminder that the meat sold then was frequently older and tougher than the milk-fed veal now sold under that name.