Veal Stew
Boil two and a half pounds of the breast of veal one hour in water enough to cover, add a dozen potatoes, and cook half an hour; before taking off the stove, add one pint of milk and flour enough to thicken; season to taste. If preferred, make a crust as for chicken-pie, bake in two pie-pans, place one of the crusts on the platter, pour over the stew, and place the other on top. - Kate Thompson, Millersburg, Ky.
A plain white stew of the sort that turned a cheap cut into supper, with an optional pastry "pie" assembled at the last minute. Two details carry the dish: the cut and the way the milk goes in.
- The cutBreast of veal is a bony, gelatinous cut that needs long, gentle cooking. One hour at a bare simmer will not soften it reliably; give it 1.5 to 2 hours, then add the potatoes. If your butcher has no veal breast, bone-in veal shoulder or shank behaves similarly.
- Simmer, do not boil"Boil" in period receipts of this kind usually amounts to what we would call a steady simmer. A hard boil shreds veal into strings and clouds the broth. Skim the grey foam off in the first ten minutes.
- A dozen potatoesProbably small whole potatoes, which would put a dozen somewhere around 1.5 to 2 lb. Use small waxy potatoes whole, or larger ones cut into 2-inch chunks, and expect 20 to 30 minutes rather than a flat half hour.
- The milk and flourDo not shake dry flour into the pot. Whisk about 3 tablespoons of flour into part of the cold pint of milk, stir that in, then the rest, and cook a few minutes to lose the raw-flour taste. Once the milk is in, keep the heat low; a rolling boil will curdle it.
- Seasoning to tasteSalt and black pepper are the baseline. A grating of nutmeg, a little mace, a bay leaf in the broth or chopped parsley at the end all suit a white veal stew; the stew is bland without at least one of them.
- The crust"As for chicken-pie" points to a plain short crust. Roll it into two pie pans and bake in a hot oven until browned, then use them as the bottom and lid on the platter. Assemble at the table so the bottom crust does not go to paste.
- YieldServes four to five as written, or six stretched under crust.
Veal breast was one of the cheapest pieces of the calf in the 1870s and 80s, and this stew is a good example of how *Buckeye Cookery* (generally dated to 1877, published in Ohio by the Buckeye Publishing Co.) handled such cuts: long moist cooking, potatoes for bulk, and milk thickened with flour instead of stock or wine. The finish with pastry baked separately in pie pans neatly avoids the soggy underside that a genuine baked meat pie risks. Like much of the book, the recipe carries a contributor's name and town, in this case Millersburg, Kentucky, part of the network of readers whose kitchens supplied the compilers.