Veal Steaks
Beat them until tender; then broil over clear, hot coals until well browned on both sides; season with salt, pepper and butter. Send to the table while hot. A gravy made by stewing in a little hot water with some bits of veal, with a few oysters or mushrooms, seasoned, and poured over the steak, is very nice.
A bare-bones grill recipe of the kind common in turn-of-the-century American books, where the cook was assumed to know the fire better than the clock. The useful detail is all in the last sentence.
- The cut"Veal steaks" would have meant slices from the leg or shoulder rather than the thin scallopini sold today, though the recipe specifies neither cut nor thickness. Modern veal cutlets or shoulder steaks work; pounding is what makes them tender enough for dry heat.
- Beating themUse a flat mallet or the side of a heavy pan, working from the centre outward, until the meat is even in thickness. Even thickness matters more than thinness over a fire, since a thick edge and a thin edge will never finish together.
- Clear, hot coals"Clear" means the flames have died down and the coals are ashed over with no smoke or flare. Under a broiler, that translates to a fully preheated element with the meat 3-4 inches beneath it; on a gas grill, high direct heat.
- DonenessVeal is lean and turns dry fast. Pounded steaks want only a few minutes a side; pull them at 145F internal and let them rest -- 145F with a three-minute rest is the current USDA figure for whole-muscle veal.
- Season with butterThe butter is finished on the hot meat, not used for cooking. A knob laid on each steak as it comes off the fire melts into the juices and does the work a pan sauce would.
- The gravySimmer the "bits of veal" in a little water to make a quick broth, then season. It is a stock made and used within the hour, not a long-cooked one.
- Oysters in the gravyAdd shucked oysters only at the very end and cook them until the edges just curl, about two minutes. Anything longer and they toughen.
- MushroomsMushrooms need the opposite treatment: give them several minutes in the broth to give up their liquid and concentrate. Brown them in butter first if you want more depth than the original implies.
- YieldFigure one steak of 5-6 oz per person, and about half a cup of gravy for two servings.
Veal was a common butcher's meat in nineteenth-century America because dairy farming produced surplus bull calves, and household books of the period treat it as an everyday roast-and-broil meat rather than a luxury. The oyster gravy is the period marker: oysters were cheap, abundant and shipped inland in barrels, and cooks used them as a savoury lift for plain meat. Pairing them with veal, which has little flavour of its own, recurs often enough in period cookbooks to count as a familiar combination. The instruction to broil over "clear, hot coals" also dates the text to kitchens where the range still burned solid fuel, and where the cook judged readiness by the look of the fire rather than by a dial.