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Roast Loin of Veal
Wash and rub thoroughly with salt and pepper, leaving in the kidney, around which put plenty of salt; roll up, let stand two hours; in the meantime make dressing of bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley or thyme moistened with a little hot water and butter-some prefer chopped salt pork-also add an egg. Unroll the veal, put the dressing well around the kidney, fold, and secure well with several yards white cotton twine, covering the meat in all directions; place in the dripping-pan with the thick side down, put to bake in a rather hot oven, graduating it to moderate heat afterward; in half an hour add a little hot water to the pan, baste often; in another half hour turn over the roast, and when nearly done, dredge lightly with flour, and baste with melted butter. Before serving, carefully remove the twine. A four-pound roast thus prepared will bake thoroughly tender in about two hours. To make the gravy, skim off fat if there is too much in the drippings, dredge some flour in the pan, stir until it browns, add some hot water if necessary, boil a few moments and serve in gravy-boat. This roast is very nice to slice down cold for Sunday dinners. Serve with green pease and lemon jelly.
A boned veal loin rolled around its own kidney and a bread stuffing — a butcher's cut that now has to be ordered rather than found. The instructions are sound; the one thing worth overruling is the total cooking time.
- Oven temperaturesThe book gives no figures; "a rather hot oven" is usually read today as around 425F and "moderate heat afterward" as around 350F. Start hot for 20-30 minutes to set the surface, then drop the heat for the remainder.
- Cook to temperature, not two hoursTwo hours for a four-pound loin will give dry meat by current standards. Veal loin is lean; roast to an internal temperature of 145F at the thickest point and rest 15 minutes, which for a stuffed four-pound roll will likely fall somewhere between 75 and 100 minutes. Check that the stuffing reaches 165F as well, since it contains raw egg.
- Getting the cutAsk a butcher for a boneless veal loin with the kidney and its surrounding fat left on — sometimes sold as a kidney roast. Supermarket veal is usually chops or scallopini. A boneless loin plus a separate veal or lamb kidney, trimmed of its core, is a workable substitute.
- The salt around the kidneyThe recipe packs salt around the kidney and rests the roll two hours; salting kidney was a common way of firming it and tempering its strong smell, though the book does not say so. Keep the rest, and consider wiping off surplus salt before stuffing so the roast is not oversalted.
- Twine"Several yards white cotton twine" means plain butcher's twine. Tie at 1-inch intervals along the roll and once lengthwise; synthetic string melts and coloured string bleeds.
- The stuffingRoughly 2 cups dry breadcrumbs, 2-3 tablespoons melted butter, a beaten egg, a handful of chopped parsley or a teaspoon of thyme, and just enough hot water to make it cohere — it should clump, not slump. Salt pork, if used, wants to be finely chopped and can replace most of the butter.
- Dredging and gravyThe late flour dredge and butter baste are there to build a crust and give the pan a roux; add the flour to the pan drippings, cook it until it smells nutty and looks brown, then whisk in hot water or stock. About 2 tablespoons flour to a cup of liquid.
- Yield and accompanimentsFour pounds should serve about six, with enough left to slice cold. "Green pease" are simply buttered peas; the lemon jelly would be a moulded gelatine, apparently served as a sharp-sweet accompaniment to the pale meat.
Buckeye Cookery first appeared in Ohio in the 1870s (the Practical Housekeeping title belongs to its later editions), and it came out of a dairying and stock-raising region; veal appears often in it, plainly enough because dairy herds produce bull calves that will never be milked. Leaving the kidney in the boned, rolled loin is a habit shared with English butchering — the kidney and its fat sit in the natural hollow of the loin and baste the lean meat from the inside, and the British loin chop cut across the kidney follows the same logic. The lemon jelly belongs to the long habit of setting something sharp and sweet against pale meats, of a piece with the currant and mint jelly pairings that outlasted it. The closing note about slicing it cold is the practical heart of the entry: a roast tied tight enough to hold its shape carves cleanly the next day.