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Haricot of Veal
Cut 2 pounds fillet of veal into small pieces of uniform shape and size, and fry till a light brown in hot Crisco. Add 2 tablespoons flour blended with 2 tablespoons melted Crisco. Season with salt and pepper, cover with 1 pint stock or water, and let simmer, covered closely, till veal is done and till stock is well cooked away. Take up, arrange in circle on dish, and in center put Lima beans, boiled and reheated in plenty of Crisco.
A plain braise from a Crisco-sponsored cookbook, written when the shortening's name was expected to appear in every step. It works as well with any fat you prefer.
- CriscoHydrogenated vegetable shortening, launched by Procter & Gamble in 1911; this book exists to sell it. Butter, a neutral oil, or a mix of both browns the veal better and tastes more of something.
- Fillet of vealNot tenderloin. In period usage the fillet is the cut from the leg, roughly what is now sold as veal round or veal stew meat. Two pounds of cubed shoulder also works and is more forgiving.
- The browning is the dishWith no wine, tomato or aromatics, all the flavour comes from the fond. Brown the cubes in batches in a wide pan, giving them room; crowded meat steams grey and the finished sauce stays thin and pale.
- Missing time"Till veal is done" means about 1 to 1 1/4 hours at a bare simmer for round, a little longer for shoulder. The meat should yield to a fork without shredding.
- Flour and fatTwo tablespoons each, blended off the heat, is a standard roux for a pint of liquid. Cook it a minute or two in the pan before the stock goes in, or the sauce tastes of raw flour.
- Reducing"Till stock is well cooked away" wants a glaze, not a soup — enough to coat the meat. Lift the lid for the last stretch if it is still loose.
- Lima beansDried limas soaked and boiled until tender, or frozen baby limas, both suit. "Reheated in plenty of Crisco" simply means tossed in hot fat; butter and salt do the same job.
- YieldServes four, and it needs a starch — plain boiled potatoes or rice — since the sauce is reduced to almost nothing.
Haricot here has nothing to do with beans, despite the limas in the middle of the dish. The word is generally traced to the old French verb harigoter, to cut into pieces, and by the eighteenth century an English "haricot" or "harrico" of mutton or veal meant meat cut small and stewed with a thickened gravy; the bean picked up the name later, and cookbook writers have been confusing the two ever since. This version comes from one of the Crisco-commissioned cookbooks that followed the shortening's 1911 introduction, in which recipes appear to have been rewritten to specify the new product in place of butter, lard or drippings, enough to preserve a fair record of plain American cooking around 1913 — a marketing exercise that also happens to be useful.